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Desiree Grace Fights to Take U.S. Attorney Job [1]

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Date: 2025-07-24

Desiree Leigh Grace–She’s Set to Take U.S. Attorney Job and Stand Up to Trump Lackey Pam Bondi July 24, 2025

The Trump administration never gives up creating chaos in order to mold the whole justice system in its own authoritarian image. On July 22, 2025, when a panel of New Jersey federal judges removed Trump appointee Alina Habba as NJ’s interim U.S. Attorney and replaced her with Desiree Leigh Grace, the assistant U.S. Attorney in that office, Trump super-loyalist Attorney General Pam Bondi responded by quickly removing Grace from this position. Bondi wrote on social media that Ms. Grace had “just been removed” from that post. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

Bondi added, “This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges–especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer, according to the NY Times, had had no previous experience as a prosecutor or in criminal law. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

What Habba had, however, was lap dog loyalty to Demagogue Donald. Habba, as I noted in my previous March 26, 2025 blog post ridiculously called Trump, “the most ethical person I know” and that he also “reads a lot.” She had the nerve to even compare Donald to South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela! When Habba was appointed interim U.S. Atty. for NJ by Donald, she more than hinted that she would probably go after key Garden State Democratic politicians. Less than two months into her job, she charged Newark, NJ Mayor Ras J. Baraka and NJ U.S. Representative La Monica McIver, both Democrats, after a clash occurred with federal immigration agents outside a Newark detention center they were seeking to visit. Ten days later, Habba moved to drop the trespassing charge. A federal court judge publicly criticized the decision makers in Habba’s U.S. Attorney’s office. Mayor Baraka is currently suing Habba for malicious prosecution. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

Habba had also directed prosecutors in her office to investigate NJ’s Democratic Governor Philip D. Murphy and Democratic State Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, over a policy that limits how much help local police can provide federal immigration officers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html NJ’s two Democratic U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim strongly opposed Habba’s interim appointment and do not want the Senate to permanently confirm her to this sensitive post which handles complex federal civil and criminal prosecutions. They have declared that Habba did not “meet the standard “ to become a U.S. Attorney.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

No, Attorney General Bondi. Please get your facts and law straight. The NJ federal judges who blocked making Habba a permanent U.S. Attorney during the rest of Trump’s administration were acting legally.They invoked a power to select a candidate of their own. Ms. Habba had met with the federal judges to plead her case for staying beyond the 120 days of her interim appointment, but failed in her efforts to persuade them. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

The NJ District’s chief judge, Renee Marie Bumb, previously nominated by GOP President W Bush, signed the order appointing Grace. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

After Bondi fired Grace, NJ Democratic Senators Booker and Kim aptly stated that the Justice Department was “continuing a pattern of publicly undermining judicial decisions and showing disregard for the rule of law and the separation of powers.” They additionally noted, “This administration may not like the law, but they are not above it.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

Desiree Leigh Grace is a seasoned prosecutor, unlike Habba. Ms. Grace was appointed first assistant under Habba soon after Habba took over the U.S. Attorney post in March, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

She previously clerked for NJ Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and for U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Morton Greenberg. NJ.com

In a post on LinkedIn, Ms. Grace stated she was prepared to take the U.S. Attorney’s post. She called it an “honor” to have been selected for the position “on merit.” She additionally said that she was ready to begin to serve “in accordance with the law.” She also noted that she had been named U.S. Attorney by a “judicial order.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/nyregion/desiree-grace-new-jersey-us-attorney.html

When she fired Grace, Atty. General Bondi called the federal judges’ role in selecting Grace “unusual.” As the NY Times, however, noted, that is not true. Between 2007 and 2024, federal judges appointed 48 U.S. Attorneys to permanent roles, according to research done by Lauren Mattioli, a political science professor at Boston University and Jennifer Selin, a professor at Arizona State’s University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. And of these, 30 were already serving as either interim or acting U.S. attorneys when named to that permanent post. Eighteen (18) were selected by judges, just like Ms. Grace was. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/nyregion/desiree-grace-new-jersey-us-attorney.html

The NY Times noted that Bondi firing Grace raises the prospect of another confrontation between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary. Ms. Grace’s firing may not nullify the judges’ decision to appoint her as the New Jersey U.S. Attorney, but it is unclear whether the judges will be able to enforce their appointment. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/nyregion/alina-habba-nj-us-attorney.html

Knowing Trump, he will probably try to litigate this case all the way to the Supreme Ct. of the United States (SCOTUS) and get the conservative SCOTUS majority to quickly hear and decide it via the emergency docket. Donald will hope that the Roberts SCOTUS will give him absolute unitary executive power under the Constitution’s Article II, an argument conservatives like Bondi are pushing, to allow him to make Habba’s appointment permanent. Even with such a permanent nomination, Habba’s appointment will still, IMHO, have to be confirmed by the full Senate. In any event, Democrats, led by Habba’s home state Senators Booker and Kim, must continue to try to block the Senate from having any confirmation hearing on Habba, as they are currently doing. Trump must not be allowed to destroy the Constitutional separation of powers, a major part of our democracy.

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