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President Trump’s interim choice for New Jersey US Attorney, Alina Habba, will see her 120-day appointment end on the 26th. Federal judges announced they had decided to appoint First Assistant Desiree Grace to the office, but U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Grace and re-appointed Habba to the post. The legal back-and-forth that has ensued has everybody wondering who will be the state’s lead prosecutor when next Monday rolls around. High profile criminal defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman sounded the alarm in March, when Habba was appointed, that it would not work out. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to reiterate why he thought the pick was less than sound.
“She’s a figurehead,” Lichtman told host Larry Mendte. “She’s a political employee. The only thing she cared about, as she said at the beginning, was to go after Democrats. Look, that’s Trump’s prerogative to put her in, but legally the liberal judges, the handful that voted to boot her, did just that. I mean, I understand that Trump wants somebody that is loyal to him in this job, but it would probably have made more sense to have someone who actually tried a criminal case one time in her life. Trump sort of walked into a wall on this one.”
In another legal issue that has plagued Trump recently, Lichtman offered his take on the possibility that Ghislane Maxwell, who was the friend and assistant of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may want to make a deal with federal authorities over what she knows about his so-called client list. “It’s tough for me to say I agree with him manipulating the law in such a really pandering, disgusting manner, but when I look at how the Democrats have done it… sometimes you’ve got to hold your nose and say, look, do what you gotta do.”
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