President Donald Trump has moved to lock in one of his most trusted defenders as the Garden State’s top federal prosecutor.
According to the Washington Examiner, the White House on Tuesday forwarded Alina Habba’s name to the Senate, seeking confirmation before her interim appointment runs out.
The maneuver sets up a lively confirmation fight, as New Jersey’s two Democratic senators are already calling Habba unqualified and partisan.
Habba, installed on a 120-day basis in March, has roughly three weeks left before she must either win Senate approval or be kept in place by New Jersey’s federal judges while lawmakers bicker.
The former White House adviser and longtime member of Trump’s legal inner circle founded her own law firm in Bedminster and rose to national prominence handling the former president’s most bruising lawsuits, including Michael Cohen’s civil claims and the New York fraud battle that produced a $350 million penalty.
Critics insist her résumé is steeped in politics, not prosecutions, but supporters answer that a decade slugging it out in high-stakes litigation is exactly the grit needed to clean up a U.S. attorney’s office too often distracted by press conferences and photo-ops.
Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim wasted no time blasting the nomination, declaring in a joint statement that Habba “degraded the office” and pursued “frivolous and politically motivated prosecutions.”
The pair pointed to Habba’s decision to charge Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver after a March clash with officers outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Newark, calling the move payback for progressive agitation against stricter border enforcement.
They were equally livid when Habba had Newark Mayor Ras Baraka cuffed at the same facility in May, accusing him of trespassing after he ignored Homeland Security warnings to back off—charges she later dismissed “for the sake of moving forward.”
Fueling Democratic angst is Habba’s unapologetic promise, hours after taking the interim job, to “turn New Jersey red” and help the GOP build momentum in a state that hasn’t backed a Republican presidential ticket since 1988.
The remark sent progressive activists scrambling for talking points, yet conservatives cheered the clarity: a prosecutor who views public safety, not social-media applause, as the benchmark for success.
Habba’s allies note that while the senator duo fumes, violent crime in several New Jersey cities keeps climbing, undercutting claims that prosecutorial toughness is somehow partisan.
The confirmation battle will unfold under a cloud of real-world hostility; federal agents last week arrested a Florida man accused of posting messages such as “Eliminate HABBA” and “Death penalty for all traitors,” a grim reminder of the vitriol aimed at anyone challenging progressive orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, Mayor Baraka is suing Habba for false arrest, malicious prosecution, and defamation, hoping to turn a dropped misdemeanor into a political cudgel just as the Senate Judiciary Committee starts digging through her case files.
The timing is tight: if the Senate stalls and the district court declines to extend her tenure, the office could face a leadership vacuum—something law-and-order voters won’t appreciate while fentanyl, carjackings, and corruption probes pile up.
