Judge says Nevada US attorney’s involvement in criminal cases ‘would be unlawful’

[Thiệu Ngô]

A judge disqualified Sigal Chattah from handling a set of cases after the defendants challenged her legal authority.

By Erica Orden

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the top federal prosecutor in Nevada is disqualified from handling cases, a rebuke to the Trump administration’s effort to sidestep the traditional methods of installing U.S. attorneys.

U.S. District Judge David Campbell wrote in a 32-page opinion that Sigal Chattah “is not validly serving as Acting U.S. Attorney” and therefore her involvement in prosecutions “would be unlawful.”

Chattah is the second U.S. attorney installed by the Trump administration to see her authority stripped by a federal judge in recent months. In August, a federal judge disqualified Alina Habba as acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, though that ruling is on pause pending appeal.

The Nevada U.S. attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. attorneys are typically confirmed by the Senate, or in some cases installed by judicial appointment. In districts around the country, however, the Trump administration has sought to bypass those channels, installing top prosecutors on a temporary basis in “acting” or “interim” capacities. Increasingly, however, defendants are challenging the authority of those U.S. attorneys.

In Chattah’s case, four defendants indicted in Nevada moved to dismiss their indictments, arguing that she was not validly serving in the job. Campbell, an Arizona judge appointed by George W. Bush, was assigned to the matter after the Nevada district judges recused themselves. Campbell declined to dismiss the indictments, but disqualified Chattah from supervising their cases “or any attorneys in the handling of these cases.”

And he ordered the prosecutors working on the cases to file statements within one week stating that they are not being supervised by Chattah in those cases.

Chattah was installed as interim U.S. attorney in April after running as the Republican nominee for Nevada attorney general in 2022. Like Habba, she was seen as unconfirmable by the Senate, and in fact Trump never nominated Chattah to take the job permanently.

In the final days of her 120-day appointment as interim U.S. attorney, a group of more than 100 retired federal and state judges wrote to the chief federal district judge in Nevada to object to voting to install Chattah after her appointment expired. The group said her history of “racially charged, violence-tinged, and inflammatory public statements” disqualified her.

Instead of waiting for the judicial vote, the Trump administration named her the acting U.S. attorney.