A major legal shakeup is rocking New Jersey's federal court system after a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled on Thursday that Alina Haba, the former personal lawyer for President Trump, has been serving without legal authority as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

The ruling disqualifies her involvement in ongoing cases and deepens concerns over how the Justice Department is handling top prosecutor appointments.

Judge Brand's decision came after several people charged with federal crimes in New Jersey challenged the legality of Haba's tenure, and the controversy raises questions about presidential power and the independence of prosecutors.

For more on all of it, I'm joined by Jacob Elberg, a Seton Hall Law professor who also served for more than a decade in New Jersey's U.S. Attorney's Office.

Jacob, really appreciate your insight on this today.

I'm just going to start with the basics.

Why did Judge Brand rule that Alina Haba is serving unlawfully in this role right now?

The judges' decision was dealing with two statutes and had to get into some pretty complex and detailed issues involving the operation of those two statutes and their language.

But at the heart of it is the constitutional concept of separation of powers and checks and balances.

And what's written right into the Constitution, the idea that the presidential appointment power is still subject to that checks and balances, advice and consent.

And so we have had a couple of statutes in operation about how you basically deal with what ends up happening, which is, the president has the ability to make an appointment subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.

Since that doesn't always happen so fast, doesn't always happen so easily, there needs to be rules in place for what happens in the meantime so that we don't have offices just not functioning.

So, we have got these two statutes that deal with that.

And the judge ruled that the way the administration was trying to use those statutes was essentially trying to do an end run around that advice and consent concept from the Constitution and that following those statutes means she's not lawfully in the position.

I also found it interesting that he, that Judge Brand noted that her tenure didn't end on July 22nd or July 26th as we were all trying to figure out that actually the interim role began when the president put another person in before her.

How does that affect all of this?

Because that plays into sort of the executive branch's ability to tap and have someone serve at their discretion, no?

Yeah, and that goes right to the way those statutes operate.

And so one of them, to deal with that issue I mentioned before about how you deal with the fact that advice and consent might not happen right away, one of those statutes has a provision that says the president can appoint for 120 days somebody to act as an interim U.S. attorney.

And so what the administration here had tried to do was essentially stack those on top of each other to say, well, we have this one guy for a period of time.

Now we've got this other person for another period of time.

And the judge says, look, that's not what the statute is doing.

It's not what by its specific language allows.

And if it did allow it, we wouldn't have the checks and balances, because if it did allow it, the administration would be able to just keep appointing folks 120 days at a time and never get that advice and consent.

What are the implications, Jacob, for ongoing cases in New Jersey, and does it put any prosecutions in jeopardy?

So it really depends on how the administration reacts at this.

The judge at the hearing made the suggestion that given what was going on, that Alina Haba should recuse herself, should step aside and let somebody else be running the office who clearly would have the authority until this is resolved.

And if that were to happen now, then the office would be able to function and function as it should.

It doesn't appear, though, to be what the administration is going to do.

Instead, it seems like what we heard last night from Alina Haba and from the attorney general were comments that they're going to continue fighting this and no suggestion that Alina Haba is going to step aside.

And that means that whatever happens in cases at this point is really at some risk of being reversed.

Yeah.

I mean, the criminal defendants who challenged her legal authority, the judge did ask that she recuse herself from prosecuting those cases as well.

But I mean, you spent 11 years as an assistant U.S. attorney.

I mean, inside this office, what type of upheaval does it have or not have on the day-to-day goings?

Because, I mean, you all are used to working under Democratic administrations, Republican administrations, right?

I mean, it's supposed to be nonpolitical.

Yeah, and it's important not to lose sight of that.

The office was and still is filled with dedicated public servants who are working hard in a nonpartisan way and going about their jobs to try to protect the people of New Jersey and beyond.

It's a real problem.

And that they just, first of all, the leadership uncertainty in any organization is a significant challenge.

But here it's worse than that, because these cases are hard enough, the job is hard enough without dealing with the potential that cases may be viewed as not legitimate because of her involvement and the fact that she's unlawfully in the position.

Let me ask you, in the little bit of time we have left, you mentioned the Justice Department is poised to appeal, an appeals process will play out.

What might that look like?

So that remains to be seen, because a little-- some of that is going to be up to the Court of Appeals and maybe even eventually the Supreme Court.

So the next step would ordinarily be the Third Circuit, where a panel of judges would consider the-- consider the issues.

That's the sort of thing that in the ordinary course takes a long time, and briefing and scheduling and those sort of things.

There may be a request here.

You can imagine a request here to expedite that.

But what that will turn out to mean in practice remains to be seen.

And then from there, whether this ends up at the Supreme Court is also something we could be looking at down the road.

Jacob Ellberg is a law professor, a faculty director at Seton Hall Law School, also spent 11 years, as we mentioned, as assistant U.S. attorney in the office in New Jersey.

Thank you so much for your perspective.

Really appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

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