{"id":16661,"date":"2025-12-13T12:01:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T12:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-seems-to-wave-the-white-flag-on-his-us-attorneys-gambit\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T12:01:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T12:01:52","slug":"trump-seems-to-wave-the-white-flag-on-his-us-attorneys-gambit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-seems-to-wave-the-white-flag-on-his-us-attorneys-gambit\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump seems to wave the white flag on his US attorneys gambit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For months, President Donald Trump has used unconventional tactics to install loyalists as top federal prosecutors across the country, and battled challenges to their authority. Now, he appears to be conceding defeat.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has signaled in recent days that it may refocus its efforts on trying to eliminate a Senate procedural tool used to block U.S. attorney nominees, rather than continuing to challenge the disqualifications in court. The move comes after New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba resigned from her post<\/a> following a court ruling upholding her disqualification<\/a> along with a handful of other U.S. attorneys who have been stripped of their positions by federal judges.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Delaware U.S. Attorney Julianne Murray also left her post<\/a>, citing the Habba ruling.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s tactics with U.S. attorneys<\/a> \u2014 bypassing the Senate or sidestepping federal judges to keep unvetted prosecutors in place \u2014 are a crucial component of Trump\u2019s effort to deploy the Justice Department against his perceived enemies. He has relied on loyalist U.S. attorneys to pursue what critics call baldly political investigations and prosecutions, including those against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Trump called the so-called \u201cblue slip\u201d process, in which home-state senators can veto judicial or U.S. attorney nominees, a \u201cscam.\u201d It\u2019s his latest attack after Trump has spent months pressuring Senate Republicans<\/a> to review the practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Blue Slips\u2019 are making it impossible to get great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys approved to serve in any state where there is even a single Democrat Senator,\u201d Trump wrote in a social media post<\/a>. \u201cSo unfair to Republicans, and not Constitutional.\u201d He directed Senate Majority Leader John Thune \u201cto get something done, ideally the termination of Blue Slips.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thune quickly rejected<\/a> that call, and Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley has indicated no interest<\/a> in scrapping the practice. Grassley also blamed the administration for failing to advance more U.S. attorney nominees, saying he has been \u201chamstrung waiting for background investigations and other paperwork from the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, a White House spokesperson referred to Trump\u2019s public statements.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, Trump appeared to acknowledge that the court rulings disqualifying his U.S. attorneys will ultimately force them out of their offices, even though many have remained there following the rulings.<\/p>\n

Trump-installed federal prosecutors in the Los Angeles<\/a> area, Nevada<\/a> and in the Eastern District of Virginia<\/a>, for example, have continued working in those offices despite being deemed disqualified. Trump, however, seemed to predict that may not continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have about seven U.S. attorneys who are not going to be able to keep their jobs much longer because of the blue slip,\u201d Trump told reporters<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n

Next stop: SCOTUS?<\/h5>\n

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the administration appears now to have only two options: continue to try to install temporary U.S. attorneys, only to repeatedly have those choices disqualified by courts, or attempt the traditional process of Senate confirmation.<\/p>\n

Tobias said he suspects the administration doesn\u2019t want the U.S. attorney gambit to reach the Supreme Court. \u201cI think the last thing they want is to have the Supreme Court say no, right? Because then the game is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

That way, he said, \u201cthey can continue to do what they’ve been doing, and that is avoiding advice and consent, which is in the Constitution, which they’ve done in more than half the districts, and continue to play games with the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

But other legal experts said it wasn\u2019t clear how the Supreme Court might rule. Nina Mendelson, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and an expert on acting officials, said she could envision the court leaning either way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf [the administration] does appeal, the Supreme Court may, on the one hand, be interested in preserving the Senate’s constitutional function of advice and consent and thus narrowly interpret the President’s authority to appoint acting US Attorneys,\u201d she wrote in an email. \u201cOn the other hand, the Supreme Court has, in a series of cases, expressed its concern for presidential control and flexibility, which might prompt it to more generously interpret the President’s power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the administration can appeal the rulings disqualifying the prosecutors, it hasn\u2019t in two key instances. In the Habba case, the Justice Department has said publicly that it will pursue an appeal, but asked the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals for an extension to decide how it will proceed. New Jersey\u2019s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, have urged the White House to work with them<\/a> to select Habba\u2019s replacement.<\/p>\n

In the case involving Lindsey Halligan in the Eastern District of Virginia, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in late November that it would pursue an \u201cimmediate\u201d<\/a>appeal \u2014 but it hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Instead, it kept Halligan in place and attempted, but twice<\/a> failed<\/a>, to re-indict James. On Thursday, in a sign the White House may be adopting a more traditional approach to installing U.S. attorneys, the administration began seeking Senate confirmation for Halligan by submitting her questionnaire<\/a> to the Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the committee, however, noted that Halligan doesn\u2019t have blue slips from Virginia\u2019s senators, and \u201cnominees without blue slips don\u2019t have the votes to advance out of committee or get confirmed on the Senate floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration is appealing disqualification rulings in the Los Angeles area and Nevada. In the Northern District of New York, a federal judge appears poised to disqualify<\/a>John Sarcone III, the Trump-aligned U.S. attorney whose office is pursuing a separate investigation of James.<\/p>\n

Despite Trump\u2019s griping about having his choices blocked, he is on pace to match the Biden administration for the number of U.S. attorneys confirmed during its first year. To date, Trump has seen 13 U.S. attorneys confirmed by the Senate, up from just two in September,<\/a> and 18 more are expected to be confirmed next week, bringing the total to 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cATTN WH; SEND MORE NOMS,\u201d<\/a> Grassley wrote on social media on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Legal experts said the uptick in Senate-confirmed top federal prosecutors is a welcome development, even if they aren\u2019t in some of the highest-impact districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s promising for the system,\u201d Tobias said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months, President Donald Trump has used unconventional tactics to install loyalists as top federal prosecutors across the country, and battled challenges to their authority. Now, he appears to be conceding defeat. The Trump administration has signaled in recent days that it may refocus its efforts on trying to eliminate a Senate procedural tool used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}