Habba Appointment as US Attorney Challenged by Defendant (1)

A man facing a criminal trial in New Jersey is fighting his prosecution on the grounds that Alina Habba is unlawfully leading the state’s US attorney’s office, opening a new front in the Trump administration’s efforts to keep her in the job.

Julien Giraud Jr., set for an Aug. 4 trial on drug trafficking and firearms-related charges, argued that Habba is no longer an authorized US attorney and that prosecutors can’t move forward with the case without a validly appointed official.

“The illegitimacy of Ms. Habba’s appointment undermines Giraud Jr.’s fundamental due process rights—as well as the due process rights of all similarly situated defendants—necessitating dismissal or immediate injunctive relief,” Giraud said in a motion filed Sunday in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey.

The filing follows a protracted battle over Habba’s appointment to lead the New Jersey US attorney’s office. The office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump originally tapped his former personal lawyer Habba in March as interim US attorney, a post with a 120-day term limit, and federal judges in the state last week selected Habba’s top assistant, Desiree Grace, to succeed her upon that term expiring last Friday.

Attorney General Pam Bondi responded by firing Grace and slamming what she called “politically minded judges.” Trump then used the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to keep Habba in the role on a temporary basis.

Giraud’s motion is the first challenge of Habba’s re-appointment from a defendant in the district.

The case could test the president’s appointment power, as well as a federal law that gives federal trial courts the authority to appoint a top prosecutor after an interim US attorney’s term limit expires.

“At the end of the day, I don’t believe she has authority to act as the US attorney and to proceed with any prosecutions in the district at all,” Giraud’s lawyer Thomas Mirigliano, a solo practitioner based in New York, said Monday.

The docket shows that pretrial proceedings were held before Judge Edward S. Kiel on Monday but that the matter was then reassigned to Matthew W. Brann, the chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

An order from Michael Chagares, the chief judge for the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, said such a move was in the “public interest” but didn’t offer any beyond that. New Jersey and Pennsylvania are both part of the Third Circuit.

The case is United States v. Giraud, D.N.J., 1:24-cr-00768, motion to dismiss 7/27/25.