America’s official Spirit Halloween pop-up has taken over the Department of Justice, and the most popular costume is “fake U.S. Attorney.”
It’s another day, so we have another Trump DOJ appointee found illegally cosplaying as a U.S. Attorney. This time it’s Sigal Chattah, the District of Nevada’s interim top federal prosecutor, who follows in Alina Habba’s ignominious footsteps by overstaying the 120-day limit on her interim appointment and forcing a federal judge to explain “that’s not how any of this works.”
Just like Habba’s debacle in New Jersey, the administration tried to get around the expiration of Chattah’s appointment by naming her simultaneously as her own first assistant and claiming the Federal Vacancies Reform Act then allowed her to automatically ascend to the acting U.S. Attorney role when her own job ended by force of law. Make sense?
Yeah, a federal judge didn’t think so either.
“The Court cannot accept the government’s assertion that the Attorney General has power to designate anyone she chooses as first assistant and have that person become the acting U.S. Attorney,” the judge wrote in a 32-page ruling. “The [Federal Vacancies Reform Act] was enacted to put an end to precisely such Executive actions.”
Chattah earned her temporary position as the top prosecutor in Nevada the same way most Trump appointees did: by being a shameless loyalist with few qualifications. Before her appointment, Chattah made a name for herself in MAGAhead circles for challenging public health mandates during COVID and flirting with election denialism. With support from such unimpeachable supporters as Matt Gaetz, Chattah got herself on the Republican National Committee and then appointed to the interim U.S. Attorney job despite a lack of prosecutorial experience.
Alas, these jobs still require Senate approval to become permanent and the Senate still, for now, respects the blue slip process for these jobs. Neither Nevada senator had any interest in supporting Chattah’s confirmation. In part because of Chattah’s past text messages saying Nevada Attorney General, Aaron Ford, “should be hanging from a fucking crane.” Which is weird because we’ve spent the last few weeks hearing all about how political violence is exclusively a Democrat problem, so it’s just crazy to think a Trump appointee would casually joke about lynching a Black man. Could that have just been a disingenuous lie spread by an administration attempting to stir up its own personal Reichstag fire? Next thing you’re going to tell me Portland isn’t really a war-torn hellhole!
Those texts about Ford became public in 2022, by the way. So she got this job after everyone knew about that.
Judge David Campbell, a fellow Republican appointee, but one who was actually capable of being confirmed by the Senate because the W. Bush administration is somehow a halcyon era of lawfulness, put a stop to Chattah’s attempt to seize the job through adverse possession. In a challenge brought by criminal defendants challenging their indictments on the grounds that Chattah, you know, isn’t really the U.S. Attorney, Judge Campbell ruled that Chattah cannot legally oversee their cases. More or less exactly how the Habba case went down.
Judge Campbell did keep the indictments intact, which speaks to the judiciary’s unwillingness to let go anyone that a grand jury has already decided very well could be criminals. Unfortunately, that just emboldens the administration to keep their fake U.S. Attorneys on the job and just let Todd Blanche or someone else in D.C. absent-mindedly co-sign their decisions. But if the calls are coming from people without the legal authority to pursue those cases, they are tainted — full stop. This nonsense is going to continue until a judge is willing to let a drug kingpin loose over this.
Not that the federal government is even trying to stop drug kingpins at this point.
(Check out the opinion on the next page…)
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
The post Judge Calls Out Trump Appointee For Cosplaying As Federal Prosecutor appeared first on Above the Law.
America’s official Spirit Halloween pop-up has taken over the Department of Justice, and the most popular costume is “fake U.S. Attorney.”
It’s another day, so we have another Trump DOJ appointee found illegally cosplaying as a U.S. Attorney. This time it’s Sigal Chattah, the District of Nevada’s interim top federal prosecutor, who follows in Alina Habba’s ignominious footsteps by overstaying the 120-day limit on her interim appointment and forcing a federal judge to explain “that’s not how any of this works.”
Just like Habba’s debacle in New Jersey, the administration tried to get around the expiration of Chattah’s appointment by naming her simultaneously as her own first assistant and claiming the Federal Vacancies Reform Act then allowed her to automatically ascend to the acting U.S. Attorney role when her own job ended by force of law. Make sense?
Yeah, a federal judge didn’t think so either.
“The Court cannot accept the government’s assertion that the Attorney General has power to designate anyone she chooses as first assistant and have that person become the acting U.S. Attorney,” the judge wrote in a 32-page ruling. “The [Federal Vacancies Reform Act] was enacted to put an end to precisely such Executive actions.”
Chattah earned her temporary position as the top prosecutor in Nevada the same way most Trump appointees did: by being a shameless loyalist with few qualifications. Before her appointment, Chattah made a name for herself in MAGAhead circles for challenging public health mandates during COVID and flirting with election denialism. With support from such unimpeachable supporters as Matt Gaetz, Chattah got herself on the Republican National Committee and then appointed to the interim U.S. Attorney job despite a lack of prosecutorial experience.
Alas, these jobs still require Senate approval to become permanent and the Senate still, for now, respects the blue slip process for these jobs. Neither Nevada senator had any interest in supporting Chattah’s confirmation. In part because of Chattah’s past text messages saying Nevada Attorney General, Aaron Ford, “should be hanging from a fucking crane.” Which is weird because we’ve spent the last few weeks hearing all about how political violence is exclusively a Democrat problem, so it’s just crazy to think a Trump appointee would casually joke about lynching a Black man. Could that have just been a disingenuous lie spread by an administration attempting to stir up its own personal Reichstag fire? Next thing you’re going to tell me Portland isn’t really a war-torn hellhole!
Those texts about Ford became public in 2022, by the way. So she got this job after everyone knew about that.
Judge David Campbell, a fellow Republican appointee, but one who was actually capable of being confirmed by the Senate because the W. Bush administration is somehow a halcyon era of lawfulness, put a stop to Chattah’s attempt to seize the job through adverse possession. In a challenge brought by criminal defendants challenging their indictments on the grounds that Chattah, you know, isn’t really the U.S. Attorney, Judge Campbell ruled that Chattah cannot legally oversee their cases. More or less exactly how the Habba case went down.
Judge Campbell did keep the indictments intact, which speaks to the judiciary’s unwillingness to let go anyone that a grand jury has already decided very well could be criminals. Unfortunately, that just emboldens the administration to keep their fake U.S. Attorneys on the job and just let Todd Blanche or someone else in D.C. absent-mindedly co-sign their decisions. But if the calls are coming from people without the legal authority to pursue those cases, they are tainted — full stop. This nonsense is going to continue until a judge is willing to let a drug kingpin loose over this.
Not that the federal government is even trying to stop drug kingpins at this point.
(Check out the opinion on the next page…)
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
