Left inset: Alina Habba, President Donald Trump”s pick to be the interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, arrives to speak with reporters outside the White House, March 26, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File). Main: Acting U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah claims in an early August 2025 news interview that those questioning her appointment fear her (KLAS-TV).
Another acting U.S. attorney appointed by President Donald Trump, and supported by DOJ legal maneuvering that was recently ruled unlawful in Alina Habba’s case, now faces multiple challenges of her authority in federal court, roughly one month after she dismissed her critics as “scared” that she knows “where all the bodies are buried.”
Federal Public Defender of Nevada attorneys for criminal defendants Shamar Garcia, Devonte Jackson, and Giann Salazar Del Real have separately asked a federal court to dismiss indictments brought under Sigal Chattah’s watch, to disqualify Chattah “and any attorneys acting under her direction” from prosecuting their cases, and to put an end to a “pattern” of “purported” Trump administration acting U.S. attorney installments spanning “at least four other districts.”
Chattah, in recent news interviews with local CBS affiliate KLAS, has defended her appointment as “not unconstitutional” and “not done in a nefarious manner.” But like Habba, Chattah resigned from her interim role before her 120-day limit technically expired, only for Trump and the DOJ to put her right back in place under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act — sidestepping, “potentially in perpetuity,” the constitutional requirement that permanent U.S. attorneys be appointed with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate and, in the examples of Habba in New Jersey and ethics complaint–plagued John Sarcone in New York, evading federal courts’ refusals to appoint them in the meantime.
According to the challengers, it appears the DOJ jumped through the same legal hoops for Chattah as it did to extend Habba’s acting appointment, and thus Chattah’s appointment should be slapped down as well for its “grave” implications for the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.
“U.S. Attorneys exercise sufficient power to be principal officers for constitutional purposes. And despite Ms. Chattah’s acting label, the administration is attempting to capture essentially all that power by extending her term—potentially indefinitely. If the administration’s statutory reading is right, then its theory would require Ms. Chattah to be confirmed by the Senate,” the filing in Garcia’s case said. “Under whatever framing, Ms. Chattah cannot legally exercise the duties of the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada. The Court should dismiss the indictment against Mr. Garcia because it was dated and filed during Ms. Chattah’s time as an improperly designated acting U.S. Attorney.”
“Alternatively, and at a minimum, the Court should disqualify Ms. Chattah and all those under the supervision at the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada from further proceedings in this matter,” the motion to dismiss and disqualify added.
The defendants urged the court to exercise its own authority to appoint a “proper interim U.S. Attorney” and to “determine” if Chattah’s “conduct as acting U.S. Attorney” has been “void” since July 26, when her interim term ended.
In the similar challenge of Habba’s authority, a criminal defendant failed to persuade a federal judge to toss out a drug-trafficking indictment, because it was not brought through Habba. Still, the judge found that the executive branch had used “a novel series of legal and personnel moves” to keep Habba in place that, taken together, show she is not “lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.” As another defendant’s indictment which was brought under Habba’s legally dubious authority was deemed “presumptively defective” yet not dismissible on that basis, the judge disqualified Habba from the two cases.
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“I disqualify Ms. Habba from engaging in the prosecutions of the Girauds and Mr. Pina, and from supervising the same,” the judge said. “Any Assistant United States Attorney who prosecutes the Girauds or Mr. Pina under the supervision or authority of Ms. Habba in violation of my Order is similarly subject to disqualification.”
The Habba case is currently on appeal at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but this series of events illustrates how the challenges of Chattah’s authority could unfold in district court.
Federal court records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Senior U.S. District Judge David Campbell of Arizona was appointed Tuesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to preside over the three challenges and “similar motions in other cases.” There will be a status conference in Campbell’s court at 3 p.m. on Thursday.
What might “other cases” mean? The Federal Public Defender’s Office provided an answer in a footnote, stating that the Garcia, Jackson, and Salazar Del Real cases are the only currently known instances in the District of Nevada where indictments were brought on or after July 26:
At present, the defense is filing equivalent motions in what the defense understands to be the only three cases in this district for which the indictment was dated and filed on or after July 26, 2025, and the Court appointed the Federal Public Defender, District of Nevada, to represent the defendant: the instant case; United States v. Salazar Del Real, No. 2:25-cr-227; and United States v. Garcia, No. 2:25-cr-230. The Federal Public Defender may pursue this issue in other cases but at this time takes no position on whether the issue implicates cases where the indictments predate July 26.
Chattah, for her part, has claimed that a burgeoning movement against her is not legal but political in nature. She told KLAS-TV last month that her critics are “scared” that she knows “where all the bodies are buried” due to her work in private practice as a defense attorney.
“You know, a lot of these people, I know that they’re scared because I know where a lot of the bodies are buried because I come from the defense world,” Chattah said, after she had resigned and she stayed on anyway. “Without saying too much about my previous experience as a defense attorney, but when you played that side, you know where all the bodies are buried. Sometimes we even choose the location to bury them.”
