(WASHINGTON) -- A federal appeals court has disqualified President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Alina Habba from serving as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court decision that found her appointment violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
Trump nominated Habba to the U.S. attorney post but she was not confirmed by the Senate. When district court judges declined to appoint her to the position, the administration installed her by formally withdrawing her nomination then placing her in a role that allowed her to serve in the position, in what a U.S. district judge called a "novel series of legal and personnel moves."
The ruling from the three-judge panel -- composed of two judges put on the bench by George W. Bush and one by Joe Biden -- comes on the heels of a high-profile decision last week disqualifying Trump's handpicked prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, who had brought criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.