President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Alina Habba, resigned Monday as the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey, leaving the job after an appeals court said she had been serving in the post unlawfully.
In a statement posted on social media, Habba assailed the court's ruling as political, but said she was resigning “to protect the stability and integrity” of her office.
“But do not mistake compliance for surrender,” she said, adding that the administration would continue its appeal of the court rulings ousting her from the position. “This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me.”
Habba is one of several acting U.S. attorneys around the country to have their appointments by the Trump administration challenged on the basis that they stayed in the temporary jobs longer than the law allows.
She said she would remain with the Justice Department as a senior adviser to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Her former duties will, for now, be split between three Justice Department lawyers.
Habba, 41, was appointed in March to serve a temporary term as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law.
Once a partner in a small New Jersey law firm, Habba was among Trump’s most visible legal defenders before his return to the White House, representing him in court and frequently appearing on cable TV news on his behalf.
But she had a partisan bent and no experience as a prosecutor. New Jersey’s two Democratic senators indicated they would block her confirmation in the U.S. Senate.
She brought a trespassing charge, eventually dropped, against the Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, stemming from his visit to an immigration detention center. Habba later charged Democratic U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver with assaulting a federal agent during the same incident. McIver says she didn't assault anyone. The case is pending.
Asked about Habba’s resignation on Monday, Trump lashed out at the Senate over its tradition of refusing to act on nominees if they are opposed by the senators representing the state involved.
“It’s a horrible thing. It makes it impossible to appoint a judge or a U.S. attorney,” Trump told reporters at the White House. "I guess I just have to keep appointing people for three months and then just appoint another one, another one. It’s a very sad situation. We’re losing a lot of great people.”
When Habba's term expired in July, a panel of federal judges appointed one of her subordinates to the role. But Bondi promptly fired the replacement, blaming Habba’s removal on “politically minded judges.”
A lower-court judge’s finding that Habba was unlawfully serving in the position soon triggered a monthslong legal standoff, prompting confusion and delays within New Jersey’s federal court system.
Then, earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia disqualified her from serving in the role, writing in their opinion that “the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.”
Trump's critics say he has been exploiting legally questionable loopholes to put unqualified loyalists in jobs that require U.S. Senate confirmation.
Bondi said Habba will return as U.S. attorney if the administration's court appeals are successful.
“These judges should not be able to countermand the President’s choice of attorneys entrusted with carrying out the executive branch’s core responsibility of prosecuting crime,” she said.
Besides Habba, several other Trump administration prosecutors have had their appointments as U.S. attorneys challenged including those in eastern Virginia, Nevada, Los Angeles and northern New York.
In Virginia, a judge dismissed criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James on the grounds that the interim U.S. attorney who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed.
In September and October, federal judges disqualified the acting U.S. attorneys in Nevada and Southern California, Sigal Chattah and Bill Essayli, saying they had stayed in the temporary jobs longer than allowed by law.
On Thursday, another federal judge heard an argument by New York Attorney General Letitia James that the administration also twisted the law to make John Sarcone the acting U.S. attorney for northern New York.
Associated Press writers Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in for Alina Habba as interim US Attorney General for New Jersey, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, March 28, 2025. (Pool via AP, file)
FILE - Alina Habba, President Donald Trump's pick to be the interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, speaks with reporters outside the White House, March 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The short-lived coup in Benin left “casualties on both sides” of the government forces and the mutinous soldiers, authorities said Monday, as security forces intensified the search for the coup leader who was on the run.
The military takeover attempting to overthrow President Patrice Talon, which lasted a few hours before authorities announced it had been foiled, was the latest in a series of recent coups across Africa — most following a similar pattern of disputed elections, constitutional upheaval, security crises and youth discontent.
In a statement detailing Sunday's events, Government Secretary Edouard Ouin-Ouro said the mutinous soldiers attacked Talon around 5 a.m. before being “overwhelmed by the fierce resistance of the loyal soldiers.”
The government confirmed the involvement of Nigerian and Ivorian troops in helping to thwart the coup, saying the Nigerian military had “(used) its military aircraft, which immobilized some of the armored vehicles.”
Authorities said although several arrests have been made over the coup, its apparent leader remained on the run and was being hunted. Two senior military officers held hostage by those carrying out the coup had also been released, officials said. Authorities did not specify the number of casualties.
An ongoing investigation into the coup will “identify all the perpetrators and their sponsors whoever they may be” and will assess the damage in the aftermath, Ouin-Ouro said in the statement issued after a high-level cabinet meeting chaired by the Benin leader.
A group of soldiers calling themselves the Committee for Refoundation stormed the national television station on Sunday morning to announce the coup.
Led by Lt. Col. Pascal Tigri, eight soldiers appeared in a broadcast announcing the removal of Talon, the dissolution of the government and the suspension of state institutions.
Before the coup, Tigri was a member of Talon's protection detail. As an artillery officer, he commanded a National Guard battalion between 2023 and 2025.
By Sunday afternoon, the coup was foiled by Benin's military, supported by Nigerian air and ground forces, which launched attacks against fleeing coup participants.
Calm on Monday returned to Cotonou, Benin’s administrative center, with soldiers on the streets.
Talon described the coup late Sunday as a “senseless adventure,” and said the situation was under control. He vowed to punish mutineers and ensure the safety of hostages, including some believed to be senior military officers. He didn't disclose their identities, and it wasn't clear how many were held.
The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, said Sunday that it had deployed a standby force to Benin to help preserve democracy. The troops included personnel from Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. The size of the force was unclear.
A Nigerian government spokesperson said in a statement that Talon had requested Nigeria’s help. It wasn't clear how many personnel or how much equipment had been deployed.
Nigeria and the ECOWAS regional bloc hadn't intervened in a member state since 2017, when it sent troops to Gambia to force then-President Yahya Jammeh to vacate power following his election loss.
The bloc, led by Nigeria, tried to intervene in Niger after the country's 2023 coup. At that time, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu led the bloc. His threat to intervene if the junta didn't restore the ousted democratic government resulted in a standoff between the bloc and three junta-led countries, and they later left the bloc.
Analysts say Nigeria has a strategic interest in defending its borders — which it shares with Benin, Niger, Chad and Cameroon — especially now, while it experiences a severe security crisis.
“The coup in Benin is one too many. Nigeria cannot afford to be encircled by hostile governments,” Oluwole Ojewale, a senior security researcher at Dakar-based Institute for Security Studies, told The Associated Press.
As West Africa battles a surge in coups, analysts say ECOWAS lacks consistency in its response. In Gabon and Guinea-Bissau, the bloc was less assertive, and it has watched some other leaders stay in office via constitutional changes.
“You can make the argument that Tinubu needed to show some strength in preserving democracy, but this now speaks to ECOWAS' double standard," said Cheta Nwanze, a partner at the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence geopolitical consultancy firm.
Despite a history of coups following its independence from France in 1960, Benin has enjoyed relative calm in the past two decades. The country is set to elect a new president in April, because Talon is set to leave office after a decade in power.
AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
Soldiers ride in a military vehicle along a street amid an attempted coup in Cotonou Benin, Sunday Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo)
Soldiers ride in a military vehicle along a street amid an attempted coup in Cotonou Benin, Sunday Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo)
People on motorcycles pass by soldiers guarding a street amid an attempted coup in Cotonou Benin, Sunday Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo)
People gather near a roadway amid an attempted coup in Cotonou, Benin, Sunday Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo)
FILE - Benin's President Patrice Talon attends a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
