The Judiciary Won This Round

"Yesterday, Alina Habba turned-where else?-to X, the Trump administration's second-favorite social-media app, to announce her resignation from a job she did not legally hold. She had "decided to step down" as the top prosecutor in New Jersey, she wrote, after an appeals court ruled last week that she had lacked authority to serve in the role since mid-July. "But do not mistake compliance for surrender," she warned. "You can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take New Jersey out of the girl.""

"Habba's resignation announcement was as baffling as the legal questions that booted her out of the office. At first, it seemed like the administration was giving up the fight to keep her in the job-until Attorney General Pam Bondi published a companion X post, several minutes later, clarifying that the Justice Department would be appealing the disqualification ruling. (Perhaps you can't take the girl out of New Jersey after all?) The fog of confusion around Donald Trump's effort to install Habba in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey has yet to entirely lift. Still, amidst the legal technicalities and blustering X posts, something quietly important happened: The judiciary stood up to the Trump administration's abuse of power-and the administration backed down."

Alina Habba announced on X that she "decided to step down" as the top prosecutor in New Jersey after an appeals court ruled she had lacked authority to serve since mid-July. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted that the Justice Department would appeal the disqualification ruling. The president maneuvered to install Habba to bypass restrictions designed to prevent appointments without Senate oversight. The president used the same tactic in other U.S. attorney offices, naming allies who pursued politically motivated indictments. The judiciary intervened, overturned or blocked unlawful appointments, and the administration retreated.

Read at The Atlantic