Summary
A federal judge in Trenton, New Jersey, threw a Justice Department prosecutor out of a hearing and ordered three officials who lead the state’s U.S. attorney’s office to testify under oath, as tensions escalated over how the office is overseen and how quickly prosecutors moved toward a plea deal. The judge, U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, said he lacked confidence in the Justice Department’s explanation of who was actually running the office.
Quraishi’s remarks and orders came during a hearing that started amid a dispute over courtroom management and quickly turned into pointed questions about the federal prosecutors’ authority. The judge said his concerns were linked to an earlier ruling that the Trump administration’s decision to replace interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba with a three-person leadership team violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which requires Senate confirmation.
In court, Quraishi questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosenblum about the office’s current management structure and whether Habba, a Justice Department senior adviser, has any role in running the office, which she has denied. The judge pressed Rosenblum on who was directing decisions in the U.S. attorney’s office while the government pursues an appeal of the earlier ruling that had barred the “triumvirate” from continuing to serve.
When Rosenblum’s supervising attorney interjected, Quraishi accused him of trying to “blindside” the court and ordered him to leave or risk removal by court security officers. Quraishi also directed pointed criticism at how the proceeding was being handled, telling supervisory attorneys they were not permitted to interrupt and, according to the account of the hearing, ordering at least one supervisor to leave after repeated disruptions.
Quraishi also tied his skepticism of the prosecution’s position to the timeline of testimony he expected. He said he would not credit federal prosecutors’ assertions about the office’s control unless the three officials—Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio—testify in Trenton on May 4. If their testimony did not satisfy the judge, Quraishi said he could summon Habba and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to testify.
The judge’s comments extended beyond the oversight dispute and into the substance of a pending criminal matter involving child sexual abuse material. Quraishi said the case had been compromised by what he described as a “sloppy investigation” and by prosecutors’ haste to reach a plea agreement before the FBI completed its search of the defendant’s electronic devices.
Quraishi said the plea agreement called for a “significantly lower” sentence than what federal sentencing guidelines prescribed. In explaining his concerns, he told Rosenblum that the FBI had uncovered substantially more child pornography that prosecutors could not charge, leaving them “stuck with” the plea agreement because they were bound by it, and the judge rescheduled the sentencing.
Quraishi’s criticism drew a response from the Justice Department, which argued that the judge’s approach was driven by courtroom conflict rather than public safety. Chad Gilmartin, a Justice Department spokesman, told the New York Times that “some judges are more interested in courtroom theatrics and constitutional overreach than promoting public safety,” adding that it was especially troubling for a court to “sideline a case involving child exploitation.”
The leadership team Quraishi referenced—Lamparello, Fox and Fontecchio, referred to in court materials as the “triumvirate”—remained in place as the Justice Department appealed the earlier disqualification ruling. In that earlier ruling, Matthew Brann wrote that a stay would not validate an unlawful appointment, and warned that leaving the triumvirate in place would be “at its own risk,” according to the account of Monday’s proceedings and Brann’s opinion.