Donald Trump just lost another courtroom battle, and this one involves a federal prosecutor he fired less than an hour after the man took office.
An Obama-appointed federal judge on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to remove him from overseeing a lawsuit challenging the president’s extraordinary decision to fire a U.S. attorney just 54 minutes after he was sworn in.
The ruling is a setback for Trump’s Justice Department, which had argued that Chief U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian should be kicked off the case. Instead, Bastian refused to budge, finding that the government failed to provide any legal basis requiring him to step aside.
The lawsuit centers on Roger Rogoff, a veteran prosecutor who was unanimously appointed U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington by all 17 federal judges in the district on July 15.
Just 54 minutes after taking the oath of office, Trump fired him.
The unprecedented move immediately triggered a legal showdown over whether a president has the authority to remove a U.S. attorney who was appointed by the federal courts rather than confirmed through the usual Senate process.
Rogoff filed suit less than a week later, arguing that Trump’s action violated federal law.
Because every federal judge in Seattle had participated in Rogoff’s appointment, the case couldn’t be assigned to any of them. It was instead transferred to Bastian, an Obama appointee and chief judge for Washington’s Eastern District.
That didn’t sit well with Trump’s Justice Department.
Government lawyers asked the Ninth Circuit to reassign the case or force Bastian to recuse himself, claiming his role as a visiting judge in Seattle somehow created a conflict.
Bastian wasn’t persuaded.
In a brief but pointed order, the judge wrote that the administration cited “no binding authority” requiring his recusal. He also noted that he had no role in appointing Rogoff and no involvement in managing the Seattle court.
Quoting the judicial oath to “administer justice without respect to persons,” Bastian said he intended to do exactly that.
The dispute traces back to the Trump administration’s unusual handling of the U.S. attorney’s office in western Washington.
After the term of interim U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd expired earlier this year, the Justice Department avoided seeking Senate confirmation for a replacement by making Floyd the office’s first assistant while leaving the top position vacant.
When district judges exercised their legal authority to appoint Rogoff to fill the vacancy, Trump erased that appointment less than an hour later.
The administration insists the firing was perfectly legal.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued that because district judges can appoint temporary U.S. attorneys, the president also has the authority to remove them. Justice Department officials have likewise maintained that Trump’s decision fell squarely within presidential power.
But courts have repeatedly pushed back against several of Trump’s efforts to install or keep favored prosecutors in key positions.
Federal judges have previously ruled that some Trump-backed prosecutors in Virginia and New Jersey were serving unlawfully, handing the administration a string of embarrassing courtroom defeats over its attempts to reshape federal law enforcement.
Now Rogoff is asking Bastian to restore him to the job.
That means the judge Trump’s Justice Department tried to remove will now decide whether the president unlawfully fired a prosecutor who barely had time to settle into his office before being shown the door.
For the administration, it’s another legal setback, and a message that judges aren’t simply stepping aside because Trump wants them to.
