Trump Gambles — and Comes Up Snake Eyes — on a Powerful Prosecutorial Appointment in Nevada

A federal appeals court ruling that a Department of Justice prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, was unlawfully appointed as Nevada’s top federal law enforcement officer is compounding the Trump administration’s struggle to appoint United States attorneys.A unanimous panel of the Ninth United States Appeals Circuit found on Monday that Ms. Chattah, appointed in March 2025, has been serving as the acting United States attorney for Nevada in an illegal capacity. That affirmed a ruling, handed down in September, from a federal district court judge, David Campbell, that disqualified her from acting as a federal prosecutor in the state. “We disagree with the 9th Circuit’s decision and we plan to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court,” the Justice Department declared in a statement.Ms. Chattah, an Israeli-born American, previously served on the Republican National Committee. The state’s Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, has referred to Ms. Chattah as an “election denier who has advocated for political violence” — a reference to January 6. Nevada’s other senator, Jacky Rosen, has vowed to do “everything in her power to block her confirmation.”Ms. Chattah’s initial appointment as an acting United States attorney was, under the relevant statute, good for only 120 days. A day before that period expired, on July 29, 2025, Ms. Chattah resigned from her post, and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted a byzantine series of legal maneuvers to keep her in the position. Judge Campbell ruled that those procedures were “never intended by Congress” to circumvent the requirement that every permanent United States attorney gain confirmation by the Senate.Ms. Bondi named Ms. Chattah as the Nevada office’s first assistant attorney immediately following her resignation. The former attorney general then claimed that under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 Ms. Chattah automatically reassumed her prosecutorial duties. The Ninth Circuit, though, was not persuaded. Judge Eric Miller, an appointee of Mr. Trump, ruled that the act “does not apply to a first assistant who never served under a validly appointed official.” “Nor can the Attorney General create a de facto Acting U.S. Attorney by delegating all of the functions and duties of the U.S. Attorney to someone else,” Judge Miller added. Ms. Chattah’s fate resembles that of another would-be prosecutor, Alina Habba. Last March the personal attorney of Mr. Trump was appointed acting United States attorney for the District of New Jersey without confirmation by the Senate. Ms. Habba also served beyond the 120-day term, and was disqualified by the Third United States Appeals Circuit after the appellate tribunal found that Ms. Bondi’s effort to invoke the Federal Vacancies Reform Act was crosswise with the law. Ms. Habba resigned from the department in the wake of that ruling, though she warned on X not to “mistake compliance for surrender. My fight will now stretch across the country.” Ms. Bondi declared that judges “should not be able to countermand the President’s choice of attorneys entrusted with carrying out the executive branch’s core responsibility of prosecuting crime.”Another prosecutorial appointment of Mr. Trump, Lindsey Halligan of the Eastern District of Virginia, was disqualified in November when Judge Cameron McGowan Currie found that she lacked statutory authority to serve as an acting United States attorney once her 120-day temporary appointment expired. That disqualification proved especially costly because it also entailed the dismissal of the criminal cases against the former FBI director, James Comey, as well as New York’s attorney general, Letitia James.In a reversal of circumstances, Mr. Trump has found himself on the winning side of a prosecutorial disqualification. In July 2024 Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland because Mr. Smith had never been confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Smith appealed that ruling, but Mr. Trump withdrew that petition once he retook the White House.

Trump Gambles — and Comes Up Snake Eyes — on a Powerful Prosecutorial Appointment in Nevada

Trump Gambles — and Comes Up Snake Eyes — on a Powerful Prosecutorial Appointment in Nevada

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