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A federal judge named Robert Frazer as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey on Monday, resolving a court fight over who controls the top federal prosecutor role in the state after earlier appointees were disqualified. The appointment, carried out through a one-sentence court order, follows a dispute that has involved both the judiciary and the Trump administration over the process for selecting U.S. attorneys.
The Department of Justice said it appreciated what it described as cooperation between the courts and the department to appoint Frazer so that federal prosecutions could resume. In a statement, the department thanked the district court for working with the Justice Department to appoint Frazer “so that once again criminal prosecutions can resume without needless challenge or delay on behalf of the people of New Jersey.”
The judge’s order naming Frazer came after earlier turmoil in the office’s leadership. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann disqualified three Justice Department officials who were sharing authority over the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, concluding they were appointed in what he described as an illegal power grab by the Trump administration. The officials had been put in place to replace President Donald Trump’s first choice for U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, who had been barred from the role last year because she stayed too long without Senate confirmation.
Habba’s replacement was handled through an unusual arrangement, the AP report said, in which Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed three officials—Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio—to share authority over the office indefinitely. After the disqualifications, another federal judge in New Jersey ordered the three officials last week to answer questions under oath, and also removed another government official from the proceeding in frustration about what the judge described as chaotic oversight of federal prosecutions in the state.
Habba, now a senior adviser at the Justice Department, congratulated Frazer in a social media post on Monday. In that post, Habba said, “New Jersey deserves a great chief federal law enforcement official who is in line with President Trump’s agenda of making this country safe and NJ great!”
Frazer had been serving as senior trial counsel in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, according to the AP report. The report said Frazer did not immediately return an email message on Monday.
The dispute is part of a wider pattern in which courts have challenged appointments of U.S. attorneys and in some cases have stepped in to name prosecutors to oversee offices until a president’s nominee is confirmed. The Justice Department, the report said, has responded in some instances by firing judicial appointees.
AP reported that judges have ruled in separate cases that people installed as top federal prosecutors for Nevada, Los Angeles and northern New York were serving unlawfully. It also cited a case involving Lindsey Halligan, who left her post as acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge found her appointment unlawful, and said the judge also concluded indictments Halligan brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.
In New Jersey, the AP report said the Frazer appointment was the result of an agreement between federal judges and the U.S. Department of Justice, following the disqualifications and subsequent proceedings over the office’s authority. The judge’s action, by naming Frazer, is set to determine leadership of federal prosecutions in the state as the legal questions about the appointment process continue to surface elsewhere.