And?
Wants to talk to the Justice Dept. Boss who keeps sending lawyer’s to rep the Trump Admin by WHOM?…
The US Atty for New Jersey WAS Alina Habba?….
She never got US Senate confirmation and was removed from the US Atty Office….
This judge IS trying to find out if the Trump Justice Dept IS trying keep Habba running the New Jersey Justice Dept office against the Courts orders…
Line lawyers ARE getting beatdown’s…
Atty Gen Bondi is a tough spot….
Does she keep Trump happy or Federal Judges satisfied?
A federal judge threw a top prosecutor from the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office out of his courtroom during a sentencing hearing this week and demanded that the office’s leadership testify about who had authority over their actions, according to court documents.
The rapid sequence of events on Monday in the courtroom of Judge Zahid N. Quraishi was the latest indication of growing tensions between the Justice Department and the federal judiciary in New Jersey. It came during the scheduled sentencing of a man who last year agreed to plead guilty to possession of child pornography.
The hearing did not go as prosecutors had planned. Judge Quraishi grew frustrated with the office’s head of appeals, Mark Coyne, who had not formally disclosed that he would appear, and fiercely interrogated a more junior prosecutor about whether the former interim U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, still had some role in operating the office.
Judge Quraishi eventually threw Mr. Coyne out.
The judge then ordered the three leaders of the New Jersey office, who last week were found to be occupying their positions unlawfully, to appear to testify about their office’s leadership structure. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed the unconventional three-person leadership team in December after Ms. Habba was disqualified. The leaders are Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio.
Ms. Habba is now a senior adviser to the attorney general and supervises U.S. attorneys around the United States. She has been in the New Jersey office in recent weeks. It is unclear why. Her presence alone would not be inappropriate or out of the ordinary given her position. It is unclear what motivated Judge Quraishi’s questions.
Asked for comment, Ms. Habba said she had absolutely no role in operating the office. “I’m not the U.S. attorney anymore,” she said. “I left my post.”
She defended Mr. Coyne as “an incredibly talented attorney, prosecutor and appeals chief” and said that he “should only be treated with the utmost respect.”….
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The clash in Judge Quraishi’s courtroom comes at the height of a remarkable extended confrontation between the Trump administration and federal judges in New Jersey, who have accused the Justice Department of prioritizing its own personnel choices over public safety. Judges have warned that if the department continues to insist on installing the office’s leadership illegally, the integrity of criminal cases will be threatened.
Last week, the judge who disqualified Ms. Habba, Matthew W. Brann, found that the office’s three-person leadership team was unlawful. He wrote that President Trump’s reliance on illegal maneuvers to appoint New Jersey’s top prosecutors might mean that “scores of dangerous criminals” could have cases dismissed or convictions reversed, because the law would be in their favor….
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Toward the end of Monday’s hearing, Judge Quraishi told Mr. Rosenblum to alert his colleagues, some of whom had hearings scheduled in his courtroom “in the next week.” “They’re not going to be able to just walk into this courtroom and say, ‘We just want to proceed,’” he said.
“You have lost the confidence and the trust of this court. You have lost the confidence and the trust of the New Jersey legal community, and you are losing the trust and confidence of the public.”….
Note….
This IS also about Congress vs Trump’s effort’s to ‘do HIS own thing’….
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