A federal judge has ruled that President Trump lacked the authority to remove a court-appointed US Attorney in Washington state, creating an extraordinary standoff in Seattle.
Judge Stanley Bastian, Chief of the Eastern District of Washington, was asked to weigh in on a lawsuit brought by Roger Rogoff, who claims he is the rightful US Attorney for the Western District.
Rogoff was appointed on July 15 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), which allows district judges to appoint someone to run a prosecutor’s office when a presidential interim appointment expires without a Senate-confirmed replacement.
Within the hour of his appointment, Rogoff was fired by the administration, a move that has now become the subject of significant legal scrutiny.
Attorney General Bondi had previously attempted several strategies to keep Trump’s preferred candidates in US Attorney roles in jurisdictions where the Senate blue slip rule made confirming them politically impossible.
The Third Circuit rejected her plan to reappoint Habba for multiple terms, and a separate court blocked the plan to install John Sarcone as a special counsel wielding the full powers of a US Attorney.
In the Western District of Washington, after Rogoff was removed, the administration installed a former immigration judge named Charles Floyd to effectively run the office without Senate confirmation.
Rogoff sued on July 21 to reclaim his position, arguing that Congress had serially delegated the power to fill US Attorney vacancies, first to the president and then to the courts, and that the executive could not simply override a judicial appointment.
Judge Bastian agreed, concluding that “while the President has the power to remove executive officers whom he has appointed, see Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), it does not follow he has authority to remove executive officers that he has not appointed.”
The court ordered the Department of Justice to allow Rogoff back into the building and to treat him as the rightful occupant of the office without delay.
As of the time of reporting, the government had neither asked Judge Bastian to stay his order nor moved for emergency relief from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The result is a legally contested situation in Seattle where two lawyers are simultaneously claiming authority over the same federal prosecutor’s office, with neither having received Senate confirmation.
The case, Rogoff v. Trump, adds to a growing body of rulings in which federal judges across multiple jurisdictions have pushed back against the administration’s approach to filling senior legal positions without going through the Senate confirmation process.