Federal Prosecutor in Nevada Invalidly Appointed, Panel Says - Bloomberg Law

[u/John3262005]

https://archive.ph/OXIO4

Sigal Chattah isn’t validly leading the US attorney’s office in Nevada, a federal appeals court panel ruled, upholding a lower court’s disqualification of the staunch ally of President Donald Trump.

A federal district court properly ruled last September that Attorney General Pam Bondi violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act when she designated Chattah as the office’s first assistant in order to appoint her as acting US attorney, the three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote Monday.

The ruling is another blow to the Trump administration in its efforts to bypass the Senate confirmation process and install attorneys loyal to the president to interim and acting top prosecutor roles. Federal judges have so far ruled the administration’s appointments run afoul of federal vacancy laws.

Some judges have allowed Trump’s US attorney picks to stay on as first assistant, a title that usually belongs to a second-in-command who leads the office during a US attorney’s vacancy.

The panel, made up of two Trump appointees and one appointed by Bill Clinton, on Monday dismissed cross-appeals from criminal defendants who challenged their indictments based on Chattah’s status as invalidly serving. The panel said it lacked jurisdiction to review that part of the lower court’s decision.

The US attorney’s office in Nevada said it had no comment.

US District Judge David G. Campbell, who was brought in from the US District Court for the District of Arizona to hear the appointment challenge, ruled in September that the procedure DOJ used to install Chattah to the acting US attorney role “was never intended by Congress.”

Campbell granted in October DOJ’s motion to stay the order disqualifying Chattah while the Ninth Circuit reviewed the case.

Chattah, a former Republican National Committee official who unsuccessfully ran for Nevada attorney general in 2022, has for months been listed as “first assistant U.S. attorney” on her office’s webpage.

The first-time prosecutor has pushed for investigations based on tips from former clients and friends while sidestepping DOJ orders for her recusal on cases, Bloomberg Law has reported.

The Ninth Circuit appeals panel probed during Feb. 12 oral arguments DOJ’s process for installing Chattah. Judges Eric Miller and Stanley Blumenfeld, who were both appointed to the bench during the first Trump administration, questioned DOJ’s argument that Trump’s Feb. 11 nomination of George Kelesis to be the US attorney for Nevada allows Chattah to serve as acting US attorney for the duration of the nomination process.

“Essentially there would be an easy workaround to, if we interpret the statutes as you’re suggesting, to allow the attorney general to have one person in almost the entire time even if there’s no ultimate confirmation of anyone,” Blumenfeld said.

Jeremy Baron, an assistant federal defender in Nevada representing defendants challenging Chattah’s appointment, said during the hearing that the administration has multiple avenues to fill a US attorney vacancy, but “the agency cannot backfill in a new first assistant to solve that problem.”

Federal vacancy law “does not allow the government to wait until months after the vacancy occurs, choose anyone in the country, hire them into the agency, backfill them into the first assistant position, and therefore make anyone in the country the acting officer,” Baron said.

Washington Litigation Group’s James I. Pearce, who argued before the Ninth Circuit on behalf of groups that filed amicus briefs in the case, said in an emailed statement Monday that the panel’s ruling affirms “the government cannot circumvent the Senate’s role in confirming a U.S. Attorney.”

“This ruling protects not just the Senate’s constitutional role in confirmations, but the American people’s confidence that criminal prosecutions are being directed by someone with the proper legal authority,” Pearce said.

[u/John3262005]

Another article about it:

Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Strategy of Picking U.S. Attorneys

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/us/us-attorneys-interim-appointments.html