{"id":134225,"date":"2025-10-01T16:01:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T00:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/10\/01\/judge-calls-out-trump-appointee-for-cosplaying-as-federal-prosecutor\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:01:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T00:01:33","slug":"judge-calls-out-trump-appointee-for-cosplaying-as-federal-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/10\/01\/judge-calls-out-trump-appointee-for-cosplaying-as-federal-prosecutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Calls Out Trump Appointee For Cosplaying As Federal Prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

America\u2019s official Spirit Halloween pop-up has taken over the Department of Justice, and the most popular costume is \u201cfake U.S. Attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another day, so we have another Trump DOJ appointee found illegally cosplaying as a U.S. Attorney. This time it\u2019s Sigal Chattah, the District of Nevada\u2019s interim top federal prosecutor, who follows in Alina Habba\u2019s ignominious footsteps<\/a> by overstaying the 120-day limit on her interim appointment and forcing a federal judge to explain \u201cthat\u2019s not how any of this works<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Just like Habba\u2019s debacle in New Jersey, the administration tried to get around the expiration of Chattah\u2019s 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? <\/p>\n

Yeah, a federal judge didn\u2019t think so either.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe Court cannot accept the government\u2019s 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,\u201d the judge wrote in a 32-page ruling. \u201cThe [Federal Vacancies Reform Act] was enacted to put an end to precisely such Executive actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> and flirting with election denialism<\/a>. With support from such unimpeachable supporters as Matt Gaetz<\/a>, Chattah got herself on the Republican National Committee and then appointed to the interim U.S. Attorney job despite a lack of prosecutorial experience.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s confirmation. In part because of Chattah\u2019s past text messages<\/a> saying Nevada Attorney General, Aaron Ford, \u201cshould be hanging from a fucking crane.\u201d Which is weird because we\u2019ve spent the last few weeks hearing all about how political violence is exclusively a Democrat problem, so it\u2019s 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\u2019re going to tell me Portland isn\u2019t really a war-torn hellhole!<\/p>\n

Those texts about Ford became public in 2022, by the way. So she got this job after<\/em> everyone knew about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Judge Campbell did keep the indictments intact, which speaks to the judiciary\u2019s 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 \u2014 full stop. This nonsense is going to continue until a judge is willing to let a drug kingpin loose over this.<\/p>\n

Not that the federal government is even trying to stop drug kingpins at this point<\/a>. <\/p>\n

(Check out the opinion on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Judge Calls Out Trump Appointee For Cosplaying As Federal Prosecutor<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

America\u2019s official Spirit Halloween pop-up has taken over the Department of Justice, and the most popular costume is \u201cfake U.S. Attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another day, so we have another Trump DOJ appointee found illegally cosplaying as a U.S. Attorney. This time it\u2019s Sigal Chattah, the District of Nevada\u2019s interim top federal prosecutor, who follows in Alina Habba\u2019s ignominious footsteps<\/a> by overstaying the 120-day limit on her interim appointment and forcing a federal judge to explain \u201cthat\u2019s not how any of this works<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Just like Habba\u2019s debacle in New Jersey, the administration tried to get around the expiration of Chattah\u2019s 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? <\/p>\n

Yeah, a federal judge didn\u2019t think so either.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe Court cannot accept the government\u2019s 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,\u201d the judge wrote in a 32-page ruling. \u201cThe [Federal Vacancies Reform Act] was enacted to put an end to precisely such Executive actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> and flirting with election denialism<\/a>. With support from such unimpeachable supporters as Matt Gaetz<\/a>, Chattah got herself on the Republican National Committee and then appointed to the interim U.S. Attorney job despite a lack of prosecutorial experience.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s confirmation. In part because of Chattah\u2019s past text messages<\/a> saying Nevada Attorney General, Aaron Ford, \u201cshould be hanging from a fucking crane.\u201d Which is weird because we\u2019ve spent the last few weeks hearing all about how political violence is exclusively a Democrat problem, so it\u2019s 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\u2019re going to tell me Portland isn\u2019t really a war-torn hellhole!<\/p>\n

Those texts about Ford became public in 2022, by the way. So she got this job after<\/em> everyone knew about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Judge Campbell did keep the indictments intact, which speaks to the judiciary\u2019s 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 \u2014 full stop. This nonsense is going to continue until a judge is willing to let a drug kingpin loose over this.<\/p>\n

Not that the federal government is even trying to stop drug kingpins at this point<\/a>. <\/p>\n

(Check out the opinion on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong> 2<\/a>Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s official Spirit Halloween pop-up has taken over the Department of Justice, and the most popular costume is \u201cfake U.S. Attorney.\u201d It\u2019s another day, so we have another Trump DOJ appointee found illegally cosplaying as a U.S. Attorney. This time it\u2019s Sigal Chattah, the District of Nevada\u2019s interim top federal prosecutor, who follows in Alina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}