By: Dana DiFilippo December 8, 2025
Alina Habba, who worked as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, announced her resignation Monday as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, a week after a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals panel disqualified her from the job.
Habba, though, won’t walk away unemployed. She said she will serve as senior adviser to Attorney General Pamela Bondi on U.S. attorney matters.
“As a result of the Third Circuit’s ruling, and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down from my role as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba said in a statement. “But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me.”
She also left the door open to returning, saying she’s awaiting further review of the court’s ruling.
Trump named Habba U.S. attorney for New Jersey in March. But after the Senate did not approve her nomination within the timeframe required by law, Trump administration officials resorted to a string of maneuvers to keep her in the job – even firing her top deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace. Federal judges had appointed Grace in July, a task federal law allows them to do if the Senate fails to act.
Several criminal defendants then challenged Habba’s continued service in the post, prompting the legal battle that led to the 3rd Circuit’s decision Dec. 1. In that ruling, a three-judge panel found that the Trump administration’s moves undercut constitutional protections meant to ensure the three branches of government remain separate but equal.
Habba in her Monday statement complained about the “lawfare aimed at President Trump” since his first term and called his critics “obstructionists.”
“Do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me,” she wrote. “My fight will now stretch across the country.”
She blasted the U.S. senators, Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim, who fought her confirmation, and the federal judges who suspended most prosecutions and some other court operations until the challenge to Habba’s authority was resolved.
The U.S. Senate’s “blue slip” process allows home-state senators to block some of the president’s nominees from moving forward.
“While I was focused on delivering real results, judges in my state took advantage of a flawed blue slip tradition and became weapons for the politicized left,” Habba wrote. “For months, these judges stopped conducting trials and entering sentences, leaving violent criminals on the streets. They joined New Jersey senators, who care more about fighting President Trump than the well being of residents which they serve.”
