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Tag: Alina Habba

  • Federal employee taken into custody following ‘active shooter hoax’ at NJ military base

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    A federal government employee was taken into custody Tuesday following an “active shooter hoax” that plunged New Jersey’s largest military base into lockdown earlier in the day, according to the state’s acting U.S. attorney, Alina Habba.In a social media post Tuesday night, Habba said the civilian employee — who has not been named — was in custody for “conveying false information regarding an active shooter at Joint Base McGuire.”That sprawling base, among the nation’s largest military installations, was placed under lockdown Tuesday morning.A statement on the base’s Facebook page urged all personnel to shelter in place. The statement did not describe the nature of the threat. The lockdown was lifted just before noon, a little under an hour after it was announced.Habba’s statement did not elaborate on the employee’s alleged actions, but it described the person as a “suspect in…today’s active shooter hoax.”An e-mailed inquiry to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey was not immediately returned.“This kind of senseless fear-mongering and disruption will not be tolerated in my state,” Habba added. “After everything this country has gone through, especially in light of current events, I will be sure to bring down the hammer of the law for anyone found guilty of creating unnecessary panic and undermining public trust.”The U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is one of the nation’s largest military installations. It spans 42,000 acres and combines Air Force, Army and Navy functions and counts over 42,000 service members, relatives and civilian employees.The base is about 18 miles south of Trenton, the state capital, and about 30 miles east of Philadelphia.The incident unfolded Tuesday as U.S. military leaders were gathered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned them from around the world to hear him declare an end to “woke” culture in the armed forces.It comes after recent violence at military installations in recent years.Last month, an Army sergeant was charged with shooting five fellow soldiers at a Georgia base. Other shootings have ranged from individual disputes between service members to assaults on bases to mass-casualty attacks, such as the 2009 shooting, by an Army psychiatrist, that killed 13 people at Texas’ Fort Hood.

    TRENTON, N.J. —

    A federal government employee was taken into custody Tuesday following an “active shooter hoax” that plunged New Jersey’s largest military base into lockdown earlier in the day, according to the state’s acting U.S. attorney, Alina Habba.

    In a social media post Tuesday night, Habba said the civilian employee — who has not been named — was in custody for “conveying false information regarding an active shooter at Joint Base McGuire.”

    That sprawling base, among the nation’s largest military installations, was placed under lockdown Tuesday morning.

    A statement on the base’s Facebook page urged all personnel to shelter in place. The statement did not describe the nature of the threat. The lockdown was lifted just before noon, a little under an hour after it was announced.

    Habba’s statement did not elaborate on the employee’s alleged actions, but it described the person as a “suspect in…today’s active shooter hoax.”

    An e-mailed inquiry to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey was not immediately returned.

    “This kind of senseless fear-mongering and disruption will not be tolerated in my state,” Habba added. “After everything this country has gone through, especially in light of current events, I will be sure to bring down the hammer of the law for anyone found guilty of creating unnecessary panic and undermining public trust.”

    The U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is one of the nation’s largest military installations. It spans 42,000 acres and combines Air Force, Army and Navy functions and counts over 42,000 service members, relatives and civilian employees.

    The base is about 18 miles south of Trenton, the state capital, and about 30 miles east of Philadelphia.

    The incident unfolded Tuesday as U.S. military leaders were gathered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned them from around the world to hear him declare an end to “woke” culture in the armed forces.

    It comes after recent violence at military installations in recent years.

    Last month, an Army sergeant was charged with shooting five fellow soldiers at a Georgia base. Other shootings have ranged from individual disputes between service members to assaults on bases to mass-casualty attacks, such as the 2009 shooting, by an Army psychiatrist, that killed 13 people at Texas’ Fort Hood.

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  • Federal employee taken into custody following ‘active shooter hoax’ at NJ military base

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    A federal government employee was taken into custody Tuesday following an “active shooter hoax” that plunged New Jersey’s largest military base into lockdown earlier in the day, according to the state’s acting U.S. attorney, Alina Habba.In a social media post Tuesday night, Habba said the civilian employee — who has not been named — was in custody for “conveying false information regarding an active shooter at Joint Base McGuire.”That sprawling base, among the nation’s largest military installations, was placed under lockdown Tuesday morning.A statement on the base’s Facebook page urged all personnel to shelter in place. The statement did not describe the nature of the threat. The lockdown was lifted just before noon, a little under an hour after it was announced.Habba’s statement did not elaborate on the employee’s alleged actions, but it described the person as a “suspect in…today’s active shooter hoax.”An e-mailed inquiry to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey was not immediately returned.“This kind of senseless fear-mongering and disruption will not be tolerated in my state,” Habba added. “After everything this country has gone through, especially in light of current events, I will be sure to bring down the hammer of the law for anyone found guilty of creating unnecessary panic and undermining public trust.”The U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is one of the nation’s largest military installations. It spans 42,000 acres and combines Air Force, Army and Navy functions and counts over 42,000 service members, relatives and civilian employees.The base is about 18 miles south of Trenton, the state capital, and about 30 miles east of Philadelphia.The incident unfolded Tuesday as U.S. military leaders were gathered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned them from around the world to hear him declare an end to “woke” culture in the armed forces.It comes after recent violence at military installations in recent years.Last month, an Army sergeant was charged with shooting five fellow soldiers at a Georgia base. Other shootings have ranged from individual disputes between service members to assaults on bases to mass-casualty attacks, such as the 2009 shooting, by an Army psychiatrist, that killed 13 people at Texas’ Fort Hood.

    TRENTON, N.J. —

    A federal government employee was taken into custody Tuesday following an “active shooter hoax” that plunged New Jersey’s largest military base into lockdown earlier in the day, according to the state’s acting U.S. attorney, Alina Habba.

    In a social media post Tuesday night, Habba said the civilian employee — who has not been named — was in custody for “conveying false information regarding an active shooter at Joint Base McGuire.”

    That sprawling base, among the nation’s largest military installations, was placed under lockdown Tuesday morning.

    A statement on the base’s Facebook page urged all personnel to shelter in place. The statement did not describe the nature of the threat. The lockdown was lifted just before noon, a little under an hour after it was announced.

    Habba’s statement did not elaborate on the employee’s alleged actions, but it described the person as a “suspect in…today’s active shooter hoax.”

    An e-mailed inquiry to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey was not immediately returned.

    “This kind of senseless fear-mongering and disruption will not be tolerated in my state,” Habba added. “After everything this country has gone through, especially in light of current events, I will be sure to bring down the hammer of the law for anyone found guilty of creating unnecessary panic and undermining public trust.”

    The U.S. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst is one of the nation’s largest military installations. It spans 42,000 acres and combines Air Force, Army and Navy functions and counts over 42,000 service members, relatives and civilian employees.

    The base is about 18 miles south of Trenton, the state capital, and about 30 miles east of Philadelphia.

    The incident unfolded Tuesday as U.S. military leaders were gathered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned them from around the world to hear him declare an end to “woke” culture in the armed forces.

    It comes after recent violence at military installations in recent years.

    Last month, an Army sergeant was charged with shooting five fellow soldiers at a Georgia base. Other shootings have ranged from individual disputes between service members to assaults on bases to mass-casualty attacks, such as the 2009 shooting, by an Army psychiatrist, that killed 13 people at Texas’ Fort Hood.

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  • Public defender’s office seeks removal of Trump’s top federal prosecutor in L.A.

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    The federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles filed a motion Friday to disqualify acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, arguing that the Trump administration’s pick to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Southern California is unlawfully occupying his post.

    Essayli, a former Riverside County assemblyman, was appointed by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April, and his term was set to expire in late July unless he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate or a panel of federal judges. But the White House never moved to nominate him to a permanent role, instead opting to use an unprecedented legal maneuver to shift his title to “acting,” extending his term another nine months without any confirmation process.

    The federal public defender’s office filed a motion seeking to dismiss an indictment against their client and to disqualify Essayli and attorneys working under him “from participating in criminal prosecutions in this district.”

    The defendant, Jaime Ramirez, was indicted on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

    In a 63-page motion filed in Ramirez’s case, James Anglin Flynn and Ayah A. Sarsour, deputy federal public defenders, argued that the Trump administration circumvented limitations that Congress has imposed on temporary service in key offices, including U.S. attorneys.

    Essayli’s term was supposed to expire on July 29. At that point the White House had not formally nominated him before the U.S. Senate, and local federal judges had taken no action to confirm Essayli, or anyone else, to the position. At the eleventh hour, the White House named Essayli as acting U.S. attorney, allowing him to hold the post for 210 more days without confirmation hearings.

    Essayli “was not lawfully acting as the United States Attorney in any capacity” on Aug. 13, when the government obtained the indictment against Ramirez, the deputy federal public defenders wrote in their motion. “And he has no such lawful authority today.”

    The U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

    In their motion, Flynn and Sarsour pointed out that the Trump administration has used similar strategies to keep political allies in power in U.S. attorney’s offices in New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico and the Northern District of New York. But legal challenges are mounting. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Alina Habba has been illegally occupying her seat in New Jersey since early July, although that order was put on hold pending appeal.

    Habba was nominated for the post earlier this year but did not receive Senate or judicial confirmation. Instead, local federal judges chose Desiree Leigh Grace, a veteran Republican prosecutor within the office, to replace Habba. Bondi responded by firing Grace and naming Habba acting U.S. attorney, sparking confusion over who actually held the post and all but paralyzing the federal criminal court system in the Garden State.

    On Tuesday, the federal public defender’s office in Nevada filed a motion to do one of two things: dismiss an indictment that acting U.S. Atty. Sigal Chattah brought against one of its clients, or disqualify the U.S. attorney’s office entirely. The 59-page motion specifically challenged Chattah, stating that she is not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney.

    Echoing Judge Matthew W. Brann’s ruling on Habba, the Nevada public defenders argued that Chattah was not first an assistant U.S. attorney, as federal law required when the U.S. attorney seat became vacant.

    The motion also argues that Chattah was illegally kept in office past the 120-day limit and can’t exercise the powers of the office without Senate confirmation.

    “The Court should dismiss the indictment; at a minimum, it should disqualify Ms. Chattah from this prosecution, as well as attorneys operating under her direction; and the judges of this district should exercise their authority to appoint a proper interim U.S. Attorney,” the Nevada motion read.

    Last month, in the final days before Chattah’s interim appointment ended, more than 100 retired state and federal judges wrote Nevada’s chief federal district judge to urge him not to appoint her once her term expired. The group said Chattah’s history of “racially charged, violence-tinged, and inflammatory public statements” was disqualifying.

    The letter called Chattah’s interim appointment “a troubling pattern by the Trump administration of bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in confirming U.S. Attorneys.”

    According to the letter, as of July, Trump had submitted formal nominations for only nine of his administration’s 37 interim appointees.

    “If this pattern persists, by late fall, more than one-third of the 93 U.S. Attorneys will have evaded Senate review this year alone,” the letter read. “Yet, the constitutional role of the Senate is vital regarding the appointment of U.S. Attorneys.”

    Each of Trump’s controversial picks has demonstrated fealty to the president. Chattah has long upheld Trump’s lie that he actually won the 2020 election. Habba — who once served as Trump’s personal attorney and has no prosecutorial experience — promised to turn New Jersey “red,” breaking with longstanding norms of federal prosecutors eschewing partisan politics. She has also filed criminal charges against two Democratic lawmakers in the state over scuffles with immigration officers at a Newark detention facility.

    Since taking office, Essayli has doggedly pursued Trump’s agenda, championing hard-line immigration enforcement in Southern California, often aping the president’s language verbatim at news conferences. His tenure has sparked discord in the office, with dozens of prosecutors quitting in the face of his belligerent, scream-first management style.

    A Times investigation last month found that his aggressive pursuit of charges against people protesting immigration enforcement in Southern California has led to weak cases being rejected again and again by grand juries. A number of others have been dismissed.

    Even if Trump had formally nominated him to serve a full term as U.S. attorney, it is unlikely he would have ever appeared on the Senate floor. California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats, are both opposed to Essayli’s appointment and could have derailed any nomination by withholding what is known as their “blue slip,” or acknowledgment of support for a nominee.

    The procedural blockades have drawn Trump’s ire, and the president has challenged Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to do away with honoring the blue slip tradition. Grassley has held firm, but Trump has threatened litigation.

    Legal experts called the White House’s move to keep Essayli in office unprecedented last month, and warned it could affect criminal cases.

    “These laws have never been used, as far as I can see, to bypass the Senate confirmation process or the judicial one,” Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor in L.A. who now serves as a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told The Times last month. “The most serious consequences are if you’re going to end up with indictments that are not valid because they weren’t signed by a lawful U.S. attorney.”

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    Brittny Mejia, James Queally

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  • Alina Habba slams Sens. Chuck Grassley, Thom Tillis over Senate’s blue slips

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    Alina Habba is heaping more pressure on Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to revoke the chamber’s blue slip tradition, which New Jersey’s two Democratic senators wielded to stop her from getting a floor vote for the post of U.S. attorney in the state.

    Trump had nominated Habba, whom he tapped on an interim basis in March, for the full-time appointment. But Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim used blue slips — which empower home-state senators to block U.S. attorney and District Court judge nominees — to keep her from advancing in the chamber.

    And Grassley, despite pressure from the White House, isn’t planning on curtailing that power anytime soon.

    Meanwhile, Tillis, also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he’d serve as a check against anyone opposed by a home-state senator even if Grassley rescinded the procedure.

    “This tradition that Senator Grassley is upholding effectively prevents anybody in a blue state from going through into Senate to then be voted on,” Habba said on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.” “Senator Booker and Senator Kim had absolutely every right to vote no for me for the U.S. Attorney position. But I had the right as the nominee to get if front of Senate and to be voted on, to be vetted. I never even got there.”

    But there remains little appetite in the GOP-led Senate to scrap the tradition, which Republicans have used in the past to influence judicial appointments at home with Democrats in the White House.

    Habba’s saga this year has been complicated. She was appointed acting U.S. attorney for the state, but, once the 120-day interim period expired, a panel of District Court judges declined to retain her, instead appointing Desiree Leigh Grace, her first assistant, to the interim position. Complaining about “rogue” judges, Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired Grace and Trump — who had previously nominated Habba to the post full-time — instead restored Habba’s interim status, a maneuver that was immediately challenged as invalid.

    The result: Habba is currently holding her attorney post “not lawfully,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann said last week, leaving open the possibility that any of the actions she has taken on the job since July 1 “may be declared void.” Shortly after that ruling, a District Court judge postponed the sentencing of a CEO prosecuted by Habba’s office due to her involvement.

    “The truth is it has nothing to do with the work that we’re doing, it has nothing to do with the crime that we’re stopping,” she told Bartiromo. “It has to do with trying to prevent President Trump from continuing his agenda, and it has to stop. So I would say to Senator Tillis and Senator Grassley, you are becoming part of the issue. You are becoming part of the antithesis of what we fought for four years.”

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  • Trump posts $175 million bond in New York civil fraud case as he appeals

    Trump posts $175 million bond in New York civil fraud case as he appeals

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    (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump has posted a $175 million bond as he appeals the judgment against him in the New York civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James.

    Trump’s bond pauses any action that James could take against Trump’s properties in response to the judgement until at least September, when the state appeals court also set a schedule to hear his appeal of the $464 million verdict against him.

    The bond is underwritten by Knight Specialty Insurance, a California-based insurance company, but the court document does not list the collateral that Trump used to secure the bond.

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    Itoro N. Umontuen, Kara Scannell and Jeremy Herb

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  • Alina Habba shares meme comparing herself favorably to Taylor Swift

    Alina Habba shares meme comparing herself favorably to Taylor Swift

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    Former President Donald Trump‘s lawyer Alina Habba has seemingly endorsed a meme arguing that the country “needs” women like her more than pop star Taylor Swift.

    Swift, who endorsed President Joe Biden in the 2020 election and has spoken out against Trump, has recently been the focus of an intensified media spotlight while supporting her boyfriend Travis Kelce‘s journey to another Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs.

    While speculation that Swift may endorse Biden again in this year’s election mounts, the added attention that the singer has received by the media during NFL games has infuriated some devotees of Trump’s MAGA movement in recent months.

    Habba, whose courtroom antics were mocked by many during two unsuccessful defenses of defamation lawsuits against Trump from retired Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, shared a meme comparing herself to Swift on her Instagram account Monday.

    Trump lawyer Alina Habba is pictured on the left, while pop star Taylor Swift is shown on the right. Habba shared a meme to her Instagram account on Monday that favorably compares herself to Swift….


    JIM WATSON/AFP; Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

    The meme shows side-by-side images of the two women, alongside the caption: “Who thinks this country needs a lot more women like Alina Habba, and a lot less like Taylor Swift? [person raising hand emoji]”

    Newsweek reached out for comment to Swift’s representative via email on Monday.

    Trump-supporting former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy suggested Monday in a post to X, formerly Twitter, that the outcome of the Super Bowl is pre-determined and that Swift and Kelce are “an artificially culturally propped-up couple” who would soon endorse Biden.

    Republican political commentator Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Senator John McCain, responded to Ramaswamy’s theory by calling out “nutjob ‘republicans’” who “are floating ugly and insane conspiracy theories” about Swift as “total idiots” in her own X post.

    Fox News host Jesse Watters aired a different conspiracy theory about Swift on his show this month, claiming without evidence that the Department of Defense may have recruited Swift as an “asset” to be used in “a psyop.”

    A poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies revealed this month that 18 percent of voters are “more likely” or “significantly more likely” to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift.

    Younger voters were the most likely to be swayed by Swift, with the poll finding that about three in 10 Americans under age 35 said that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift.

    “[Swift has] influenced popular culture, sports, the economics of entire regions of the U.S.,” communications consultant James Haggerty told Newsweek. “So why not politics and elections?”

    However, 17 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a Swift-backed candidate, while 55 percent said they would be unaffected by her opinion. Only 45 percent of those polled said that they were fans of Swift.