Federal Judge Threatens to Throw Out Alina Habba’s Successors Too

A federal judge has rejected President Trump’s new appointees to the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office, ruling that the president is illegally trying to get around Senate confirmation.

Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled Monday that the three-prosecutor team running the office is leading “unlawfully,” as the Trump administration tries to cite “enormous grants of executive power hidden in the vagaries and silences of the code.”

“Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this district potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?” Brann wrote in his ruling. “The government tells us: The president doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.”

Several criminal cases in the district could be thrown out, with “scores of dangerous criminals” possibly able to escape punishment, Brann wrote, because the Trump administration doesn’t want to appoint U.S. attorneys legally—not just in New Jersey, but all around the country.

“The Office of the United States Attorney for at least five other Districts is currently vacant and in each case it appears that the Government is running the office through a delegation of authority to an individual of the Attorney General and President’s unilateral choice,” Brann wrote, noting that in two cases, judges used their legal power to appoint an attorney to fill the vacancy, and Trump fired their picks too.

“In both cases the President fired their selection within hours and [Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche] made combative (and legally incomplete) posts clearly indicating that the Department of Justice would not permit anyone to hold any United States Attorney’s office if that person was not handpicked by the President,” Brann continued.

The whole reason that the New Jersey office was being run by three attorneys was because Trump’s appointment of his personal lawyer, Alina Habba, as U.S. attorney was found to be illegal. Habba, who was set to lose her nomination vote in the Senate, unlawfully stayed past her interim term. She now works for the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., and called Monday’s ruling “ridiculous” on X.

“Judges may continue to try and stop President Trump from carrying out what the American people voted for, but we will not be deterred,” Habba wrote. “The unconstitutionality of this complete overreach into the Executive Branch, time and time again, will not succeed. They would rather have no U.S. Attorney than safety for the people of NJ.”

Ridiculous or not, absent the Senate, Trump’s handpicked prosecutors are going to keep getting rejected by federal judges. Unless the president starts appointing them legally, every federal prosecution is going to be in jeopardy.

The Iranian Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei the country’s new supreme leader just a week after the U.S. and Israel assassinated his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other senior officials. Now President Trump wants to kill him too—unless he capitulates to his demands.

“President Trump has told aides he would back the killing of new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei if he proves unwilling to cede to U.S. demands, such as ending Iran’s nuclear development,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing current and former U.S. officials.

“The U.S. has now established an operational doctrine of assassinating a foreign head of state with no congressional declaration and threatening to kill his successor if the successor doesn’t comply with U.S. policy demands,” Christine Villaverde, chair of the advocacy group Anchoring Democracy, wrote on social media.

“‘We’re just gonna keep assassinating a country’s leadership until they appoint someone we like’ is a really novel precedent in international relations and statecraft which I hope the geniuses running the show in DC and Israel fully understand the implications of,” national security analyst John Schindler wrote on X.

Trump has called the younger Khamenei “unacceptable” and “a big mistake.” But killing leader after leader until one decides to bend the knee is far from a plan at all.

The Department of Homeland Security is trying to hide hundreds of ICE-mobiles they can’t actually use to detain immigrants.

ICE’s former deputy director, Madison Sheahan, wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on 2,500 vehicles custom-wrapped to say “ICE” on the side, three sources told the Washington Examiner. The gaudy cars feature massive ICE logos, red stripes, and a golden decal of President Donald Trump’s name on the back window.

The vehicles first appeared in a DHS video intended to make ICE look cool. But a fleet of ostentatious cars are useless to Trump’s masked militia, which typically disappears people using unmarked vehicles.

“It’s ridiculous because you don’t want to advertise what you’re doing,” one person told the Examiner. “We’re just hiding them in a parking garage somewhere because we don’t want to drive them. Who wants to drive the marked vehicles?”

A second person familiar with the matter said the marked cars are being used for custodial pickups and transfers. That’s really all they’re good for.

It seems that the 28-year-old Kristi Noem handpicked to oversee ICE’s billion-dollar budget may have wasted millions of dollars. DHS spent $1.5 million on 25 new sports utility vehicles in November, and later paid an additional $174,000 to $230,000 to get them delivered. Sheahan went so far as to request an upgrade for most of the agency’s fleet from unmarked cars to the flashy new ones. Perhaps she had imagined that ICE would act as a kind of police, and not the president’s untrained extrajudicial paramilitary.

Sheahan left her role last month to pursue a congressional campaign. Since her departure, DHS has been scrambling to receive the rest of the vehicles unwrapped. Sheahan’s apparent mentor Noem was unceremoniously fired last week.

The White House is working to dredge up another election conspiracy with eight months on the clock until midterms.

The Trump administration subpoenaed records related to the 2020 presidential election Monday from Maricopa County, Arizona.

Arizona Senate President Warren Peterson wrote on X that he had complied with a federal grand jury subpoena to turn over records of the county audit to federal authorities.

“The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news,” Peterson wrote, responding to a post in which Donald Trump said the development was “great!” Peterson is currently running to be Arizona’s attorney general, though his candidacy is reportedly in doubt due to the state’s “zombie laws,” which require candidates to have recently practiced law before they announce their candidacy.

Officials in Maricopa County, however, had no idea what Peterson was talking about.

Jason Berry, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, told the Phoenix-area radio station KJZZ that the board had not received a subpoena.

“Maricopa County runs elections in accordance with the law. We have not received a subpoena at this time but will cooperate if that were to occur,” Berry said.

The Maricopa County recorder’s office also said it had not received a subpoena, referring questions back to Peterson.

It’s the second state at which the administration has recently taken aim as it continues to sow doubt over Donald Trump’s major political loss. In December, Attorney General Pam Bondi sued Fulton County officials in Georgia, demanding that they turn over “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files.”

Weeks later, the FBI raided an elections office outside of Atlanta.

The Georgia suit was filed the same day as the DOJ announced legal action against four more states—Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nevada—in a sweeping national effort to access sensitive voter data.

Since Trump first planted the seeds of doubt about the results of the 2020 election, a litany of his allies have continued to tend and water the theory—so much so that within a handful of years, refusing to admit that Trump ever lost to Joe Biden has become a fealty test for MAGA membership.

Both Maricopa County and Fulton County have played major roles in Trump’s political conspiracy. But there is no doubt: Trump lost that election by a landslide, coming up short by 38 electoral votes. More evidence that Trump did not win includes the fact that he was not inaugurated in 2021, and did not serve a day as president until he was reelected in 2024.

But for anyone still in doubt, know that the theory has been thoroughly debunked by the president’s own appointees. Trump’s last attorney general, Bill Barr, announced in 2022 that despite an intensive, multi-agency investigation, no evidence of widespread fraud had been discovered that supported the president’s wild claims.

Yet the theory—and Trump’s vast cadre of yes men—persist. Late last year, Trump granted “full, complete, and unconditional” pardons for dozens of the alleged co-conspirators that helped fuel the scheme, including disgraced New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, and 72 others.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump has fired a Republican member of the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, accusing him of misconduct on the job.

J. Todd Inman was fired late last week and said he was given no explanation why. On Monday, the White House released a statement accusing him of “inappropriate alcohol use on the job, harassment of staff, misuse of government resources, and failure to attend at least half of NTSB meetings,” saying he was “lawfully removed” due to “highly concerning reports.”

“The Trump administration remains committed to maintaining safety and security for Americans in the air and on the ground,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

Inman, meanwhile, told The Washington Post that it was all made up.

“I categorically deny the false allegations made in the White House statement,” Inman said. “It has become increasingly obvious this action was a political hit job. While not my original intent I look forward to defending my reputation against those responsible with every legal means possible.”

Inman didn’t tell the Post why he said his firing was political, but he had represented the NTSB at news conferences since an American Airlines flight crashed in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

Last May, Trump fired another member of the NTSB, vice chair Alvin Brown, who was appointed by President Biden. Brown is suing the Trump administration over his ouster, arguing that Trump didn’t have the authority to fire him, even as the Senate confirmed his replacement, John DeLeeuw, last month. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in favor of the Trump administration. Will Inman sue as well?

One of the same law firms that President Trump tried and failed to suppress is now representing AI company Anthropic in its lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Last year, Trump signed an executive order demanding that government agencies eliminate WilmerHale’s government contracts, their security clearances, and their access federal buildings, on the grounds that they allegedly “rewarded” Robert Mueller by allowing him to remain on their payroll after his investigation into Trump’s connections to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The executive order was ruled unconstitutional in May.

Now, that same law firm is helping Anthropic sue the Trump administration for labeling them a “supply risk” after the AI company refused to lift regulations restricting government access to surveillance and unmanned weapons systems.

More than a dozen federal agencies are targeted in the lawsuit, including the Departments of Defense, Treasury, State, and Veterans Affairs.

“Anthropic was founded based on the belief that AI technologies should be developed and used in a way that maximizes positive outcomes for humanity, and its primary animating principle is that the most capable artificial-intelligence systems should also be the safest and the most responsible. Anthropic brings this suit because the federal government has retaliated against it for expressing that principle,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit goes on to cite Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegesth’s statements on Anthropic against them. “When Anthropic held fast to its judgment that Claude cannot safely or reliably be used for autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance of Americans, the President directed every federal agency to ‘IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology’—even though the Department of War (Department) had previously agreed to those same conditions,” the suit states. “Hours later, the Secretary of War directed his Department to designate Anthropic a ‘Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,’ and further directed that ‘effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.’

“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” the lawsuit adds. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech.”

In response, the White House has stated that it “will never allow a radical left, woke company to jeopardize our national security by dictating how the greatest and most powerful military in the world operates.”

The U.S. will only pull out of Iran when Israel decides it’s time to call it quits.

That’s according to Donald Trump, who told The Times of Israel on Sunday that the decision to end the Iran war will be a “mutual” decision he makes with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking,” Trump said when asked if he alone would make the decision to end the war. “I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.”

He dismissed the idea that Israel could continue its own campaign against Iran even after the U.S. pulls back, telling the Times of Israel, “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”

“Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it.… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel,” Trump told the paper.

Trump’s deference to Israel stands in stark contrast to where he supposedly stood on the issue on Friday, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the decision to end the war would be solely up to the U.S. president’s discretion.

State Secretary Marco Rubio gave away the game on the rationale for U.S. involvement in the war last week. Speaking to a press huddle, Rubio explained that Israel had forced Trump’s hand in the matter by heedlessly barging forward with its war plans against Iran. That prompted U.S. military assets to strike first, a decision that Rubio chalked up to intel that indicated Iran would retaliate with force against American interests if Israel initiated an attack.

Hours later, Trump decided that messaging was unacceptable, publicly disagreeing with his secretary of state’s interpretation of events.

That required Rubio to reemerge before reporters the following day, frantically backpedalling on the explanation he had offered. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, claimed later the same day that Rubio’s point-blank comments had been “taken out of context.”

Talk of escalating the conflict with Iran has ramped up in recent days amongst chief White House officials, at times doing so in a remarkably disaffected way. The president declared on Friday that he wants “unconditional surrender” from Iran, and would not negotiate a peace deal without it.

Trump and his Republican allies are privately warming to the idea of a U.S. ground invasion in Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian officials have already said they are “confident” the country could counter a U.S. ground invasion.

So far, seven U.S. soldiers have been killed in the conflict, as have more than 20 Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Eighteen American soldiers have also been seriously injured. More than 1,200 Iranian civilians have been killed, including dozens of children at a girls’ school in the country’s south. A U.S. assessment report found that the strike was “likely” the fault of American forces.

Republican Representative Andy Ogles decided to write off an entire religious community in America on Monday.

“Muslims don’t belong in American society,” Ogles posted on X. “Pluralism is a lie.”

The Tennessee congressman has a long history of bigoted comments. He said America “should kill ’em all” last year regarding Palestinians in Gaza. He called for sending pro-Palestine student protesters to Gaza last May, and used footage of September 11 to attack Zohran Mamdani before he was elected New York City mayor.

In November, Ogles made a series of anti-Muslim comments on his Restoring the Republic podcast, saying, “The only thing they can do is essentially come to our nation and breed their way through our society, and I hate to say that, that’s harsh, it’s going to offend somebody, so what? Wake up.”

What prompted Ogles to post prejudice against Muslims Monday morning isn’t clear, although a protest outside of Mamdani’s mayoral residence in New York on Sunday might have had something to do with it. Anti-Islam provocateur Jake Lang showed up with about 20 protesters outside of Gracie Mansion, only to be met by 125 counterprotesters. Among them were two people allegedly inspired by ISIS who were arrested after throwing homemade bombs that didn’t explode.

If that wasn’t what spurred Ogles’s attack, it could be the war in Iran, or something from one of his four Muslim colleagues in Congress, particularly Representative Ilhan Omar, whom he has attacked in the past. Perhaps he should be more worried about the open federal investigation into his campaign finances or the mounting fact-checks of his lies about his background. Ogles should be censured by Congress at a minimum, but bigotry against Muslims in America is sadly considered normal, especially in the Republican Party.

Russia may be about to get rich off of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran.

The spiraling regional conflict, sparked by ongoing attacks from the U.S. and Israel, has sent the price of oil skyrocketing to almost $120 per barrel. As a result, demand for discounted Russian oil has spiked.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last week that the U.S. would issue 30-day waivers to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil that was “already stranded at sea,” promising doing so would “not provide significant financial benefit” to the Kremlin.

However, India typically imports an average of 10 million metric tons of crude oil per month through the Strait of Hormuz, Vaibhav Raghunandan, an EU-Russia analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Politico.

“Even if half of this volume is replaced with Russian volumes at sea, it will translate to huge profits for the Kremlin,” Raghunandan said. As of February 2026, Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of stranded oil tankers held approximately 150 million barrels of Russian oil worth an estimated $6.4 billion, according to the Robert Lansing Institute.

“We may unsanction other Russian oil,” Bessent said to Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow Friday. But permitting further sales of Russian oil would undoubtedly offer a financial boon to the country’s ongoing war effort in Ukraine. So far, Trump has largely proven powerless at forging a deal between Moscow and Kyiv—and war with Iran could only make matters worse.

All of this comes after the White House dismissed reports that Russia was assisting Iran in targeting U.S. assets in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, called for the European Union to lift sanctions on Russian oil amid escalating conflict in the Middle East, which has brought global trade to an abrupt stop. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriyev echoed Hungary’s request.

“What you propose is very difficult, as it would require EU bureaucrats to think and understand how markets work—and, most difficult of all, to acknowledge their strategic blunders and atone,” he wrote on X. “And yet, they will have to do it very soon.”

It seems that President Trump has scared every man in his Cabinet into wearing the matching shoes he bought for all of them.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump has developed a strong affinity for the American shoe brand Florsheim, and has bought a pair for Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, communications director Steven Cheung, deputy chief of staff James Blair, and speechwriter Ross Worthington. Even those not in his Cabinet, such as Fox News host Sean Hannity, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Tucker Carlson, have been gifted a pair. They are around $145.

“Did you get the shoes?” he’d ask them.

“All the boys have them,” one female White House official told the WSJ. “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” said another.

Rubio and Vance got their Florsheims after an Oval Office meeting last year. “Marco, JD, you guys have s—y shoes,” Trump said before getting a Florsheim catalog and asking them their shoe sizes.

“The president kind of leans back in his chair and says, ‘You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size,’” Vance said.

While this strange development may have little to do with policy, it does offer more insight into the psyche of the president. He is someone who wants control of aesthetics and the patronage that comes with gift-giving.