'Biggest step back': Trump DOJ's 'white flag' on brazen power grab astounds legal analyst

The Trump administration's Justice Department quietly capitulated this week on one of its most brazen power grabs, accepting a federal court's authority to appoint a U.S. attorney in New Jersey after eight months of defiance — and one legal analyst characterized it as the most significant retreat from Trump's sweeping executive power theory to date.

The cave came after a federal judge threw a DOJ prosecutor out of his courtroom last week and ordered members of the department's makeshift "triumvirate" of New Jersey prosecutors to testify under oath about what the court called an illegal leadership structure.

"Generations of assistant U.S. attorneys had built the goodwill of that office for your generation to destroy it within a year," U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi told a prosecutor in the courtroom.

The chaos traces to Trump's appointment of his former personal attorney Alina Habba as interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a role she couldn't keep, as she wouldn't survive Senate confirmation. When a federal court appointed a successor, Bondi fired her and did the same with two others.

"When the New Jersey District Court named Desiree Leigh Grace to succeed Habba, Bondi fired her. When a Virginia District Court named James Hundley to succeed Halligan, Bondi fired him. When a New York District Court named Donald Kinsella to succeed John Sarcone—a former Trump campaign attorney—Bondi fired him," noted Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern on Tuesday.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly declared on X that "judges don't pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does," a position courts in six states ultimately rejected.

Stern was floored by Monday's surrender, calling the practical consequences "immense," and the deeper implications "just as important" for the administration, as it finally accepted the judiciary's power to appoint prosecutors, and abandoning its position that only a president can do so.

"This white flag marks the Trump administration’s biggest step back from its maximalist vision of a 'unitary executive' who holds total control over his entire branch. It is a begrudging admission that the other two branches of government can still restrain the presidency—proof that the separation of powers is more resilient than Trump had anticipated.

Stern concluded: "There is nothing inevitable about this president's unlawful consolidation of power."