Trump's former personal lawyer and attorney for New Jer- uh, and attorney general for New Jersey has been disqualified from serving as the top federal prosecutor in that state, meaning Habba's appointment, it's unlawful. Unlawful. [00:00:15] And thus, her time serving as the top fed prosecutor was just her playing pretend. Cenk, your two cents before you get into the Alina Habba details and how she's been disqualified as US attorney. Yeah. Look, I think this is a great story. I think it's a really important story. [00:00:32] Why? It turns out there are still laws in this country, and you kind of have to abide by them. So, what did they do wrong here? What did the judges do? And will Trump listen to them and why he kind of has to. So, all this is very interesting, not just for this particular story [00:00:49] and not just a "Ha ha, Alina Habba can't be the US attorney, " but there's really important parts of this story about whether they're gonna cross the Rubicon or not. Yeah, and also how revelatory it is about the way that this administration tries to play the system and use and go [00:01:05] around back channels to get done what's in their political agenda and how they address their political enemies. There are numerous issues with how Alina Habba was appointed and overstayed her welcome. Earlier this year in August, US District Judge Matthew W. Brann filed, uh, uh, [00:01:23] ruled on those issues in a 77-page ruling. Here's part of it. "The executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba's appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves." Now, got to follow this. [00:01:39] "Alina Habba was sworn in March, sworn in on March 28, but interim appointments are capped at 120 days. Trump nominated her to be the permanent US attorney on June 30, but the Senate did not act. On July 22nd, judges of the US District Court of New Jersey invoked their [00:01:58] statutory power to appoint a new US attorney, Habba's deputy." So, they did the old switcharoo here. Follow. "Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Habba's successor and appointed Habba as, [00:02:14] quote, 'special attorney to the attorney general' and then named her to the open deputy spot, which allowed her to become the acting US attorney." I mean, this is just manipulating the rules. "US District Judge Matthew W. Brann continued, [00:02:30] 'Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not. Habba is not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties [00:02:45] of the office in an acting capacity. She must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases.'" In fact, she was acting the whole time. That's the perfect title for her, Acting US Attorney, because she was, uh, really doing a performative piece. [00:03:03] "Today's ruling comes from a unanimous decision," important, "by the 3rd District Court of Appeals. The decision stemmed from motions of three criminal defendants who had Habba illegally overseeing their cases, Abbe Lowell, Jerry Cravatin, and Norm Eisen." Abbe Lowell, uh, you know, these are all [00:03:21] political if you look at them, you know. Uh, Abbe Lowell was on, um, eh, uh, has represented Lisa Cook most recently on the, uh, FCC board. Norm Eisen, uh, was a, one of the lawyers involved in the impeachment, the first impeachment of Trump. Jerry Cravatin is an, uh, immigration attorney. [00:03:39] Abbe Lowell ha- has in his past also represented Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, among many, many others. "A judge did not dismiss their cases, but agreed Habba should be disqualified. Habba's appointment also violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. [00:03:55] The Vacancies Act stipulates that unless a covered acting officer is serving in compliance with the law, any attempt to perform the functions and duties of that office will have no force or effect." Let me just repeat that. "Any attempt to perform the functions and duties of that office [00:04:12] will have no force or effect. Non-compliant actions are void and may not be ratified." This is not the only unlawful appointee. You'll remember, you don't have to think back far, late last week, a federal judge dismissed the cases against James Comey and Letitia James [00:04:30] because Lindsay Halligan was also unlawfully appointed to the position of interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Department of Justice has stated they plan to appeal those rulings, and that's not a surprise. But Cenk, uh, this is, uh, one, uh, one attorney per week. [00:04:47] - We're up to two straight weeks. - Yeah. So, uh, her deputy that they put in place of her, um, s- the judges actually in a case said, "Look, we don't want to jeopardize these actual cases 'cause they're danger- 'cause some [00:05:03] of them are, could be dangerous criminals, right, that we're trying here. So we're gonna put her deputy in charge of the case and in charge of the department 'cause she's there illegally," right? Uh, and the Trump administration got mad at that and fired the deputy. [00:05:19] - But she didn't do anything wrong. - Right. I mean, for all we know, she might have been a huge Trump supporter. She was assigned to those cases by the judges. They're like, "Who cares? Out of infinite pettiness, we fire you." So it's, I guess, the reverse of that song, I Shot the Sheriff But Not the Deputy . [00:05:37] Have you been sitting on that all day ? No. Okay. All right. Okay. I thought of it a minute ago, so I've been sitting on it for a minute . Okay. Good. Okay. Okay? So, uh, okay. Uh, now to the heart of the case. Look, s- having someone to serve past 120 days, is that the worst transgre- [00:05:52] transgression that Trump has done? No. Not close, right? So, on the other hand, it could jeopardize the cases, including criminal cases, so it's not a great idea either. But that's not the heart of this story. I'm not like, "Oh my God, Alina Habba was in there on day 123 [00:06:07] and the country fell apart." No, the country didn't fall apart, right?But the heart of the case is about, are we going to follow the law or not? There is a law. You can't go past 120 days. You have... By the way, you can solve all this. Just get her confirmed, right? And then that'll be... [00:06:23] But the problem is the two senators from New Jersey say, "No, she's like a bit of a loon and we're not going to participate in that," right? And so then that dooms her, uh, i- in the Senate. Okay, then find someone else. We have laws and this is the judges basically saying, [00:06:41] "Brother, I don't get it. Are you gonna follow the law or not? Because this is not an unclear law and you're brazenly violating it, and so we're just not gonna let you do it." And that is exactly the role of the judiciary. A- and then there are two other little things about this which are, [00:06:58] uh, are interesting to me. One is, uh, he always says, "I appoint the best people," right? Uh, he wa- she was his personal lawyer. All he did was lose cases. Everything that happened with him in a courtroom in New York [00:07:13] and elsewhere, he lost. And so why do you want this person working for you, A? B, there's something in the Trump mentality, in the Trump world mentality here, where they look for loopholes, right? So we hear people saying, "Oh, what's gonna happen is Vance is gonna run, he's gonna make Trump his vice president, [00:07:29] then Vance is gonna resign." We all laugh at that and we think, "Oh, there's no way that could happen. There's no way that..." That's basically the model for what this is, right? It's the deputy and put the deputy in there. The deputy steps on down. This is the acting person. It's like Putin and Medvedev were years ago when Medvedev won the presidency, [00:07:46] but then Putin came back. I- again, uh, that I, I'm not drawing a straight line, but I'm certainly saying that this is the way their manipulative minds think and the way they want to play the system. And clearly they do play the system 'cause they don't abide by the laws of the country. [00:08:02] Yeah. And last thing I'll say is, yeah, I don't mind you fudging things a little bit, playing around, using all the loopholes you can as long as it's legal, right? So for example, whether it's Trump or the Democrats, if they say, "Hey, you know what? Here's a rule I'm using to fire the parliamentarian so I can get [00:08:18] this bill passed." As long as is, you're still within the bounds of the law, I actually would probably push the envelope to get our agenda done, okay? But once you're beyond the law, no. It's a hard no. Otherwise, we don't have laws anymore, right? [00:08:35] As Trump would say, "Then we don't have a country anymore." And it's true. But there's something, but Cenk, there's something consistently manipulative about it when you do it as a matter of course, even if you're within the law and that's how you're gonna play the entire time. I mean, that, that, it's, there's the spirit of the game too, right? [00:08:51] I mean, uh- Yeah. Th- see, that's where you and I might disagree a little bit. Yeah. I wanna push as hard as I can with an agenda and I d- and I game respects game. - Mm-hmm. - I don't mind them doing that. But once you're outside the law, then we can't have it. Otherwise everything's gonna fall apart. So no, no. And the judges are absolutely right here. [00:09:07] Get back to within the law. Three of them, unanimously they're right. And two of 'em are appointed, uh, by Republican presidents. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.