An appellate court found on Monday that Alina Habba is unlawfully serving as the top prosecutor in New Jersey, delivering a blow to President Donald Trump as he fights to keep his preferred nominees in charge of U.S. attorney’s offices in blue states.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said in an order that a lower court was correct to disqualify Habba, a fiery Trump loyalist who previously served as the president’s personal defense lawyer.

The Trump administration could ask for a full panel of 3rd Circuit judges to reconsider the decision, or it could turn to the Supreme Court to weigh in. Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Justice and a Habba spokesperson for comment.

A three-judge panel for the 3rd Circuit heard arguments on Habba’s appointment in October and grilled a Department of Justice lawyer over the unconventional way Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi reinstalled Habba as U.S. attorney after her initial, temporary appointment expired.

TRUMP APPOINTS HABBA AS ‘ACTING’ US ATTORNEY AFTER JUDGES OUSTED HER

Habba is one of several names who became jammed up in court proceedings over allegations that Trump sidestepped the Senate and improperly exploited loopholes in federal vacancy laws to keep his preferred prosecutors in place.

Habba’s case was the furthest along in the court process, but Lindsey Halligan and Bill Essayli, temporary U.S. attorneys in Virginia and California, respectively, are among those also facing high-stakes court challenges to their appointments.

The panel that heard Habba’s case comprised two appointees of former President George W. Bush and one appointee of former President Barack Obama.

The judges voiced skepticism of DOJ lawyer Henry Whitaker’s claims that Bondi had authority to fill the vacancy for the U.S. attorney of New Jersey after Trump fired the court-appointed one. Whitaker said the administration simply took advantage of «overlapping mechanisms» afforded to it by Congress.

TRUMP’S US ATTORNEYS IN BLUE STATES FACE LEGAL CHALLENGES THAT COULD UPEND KEY PROSECUTIONS

Alina Habba speaks during a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

«In this case, the executive branch admittedly took a series of precise and precisely timed steps not to evade or circumvent those mechanisms but rather to be scrupulously careful to comply with them,» Whitaker said.

One of the judges said during the oral arguments that he viewed Habba’s case as unusual and possibly unconstitutional.

«Would you concede that the sequence of events here, and for me, they’re unusual, would you concede that there are serious constitutional implications to your theory here, the government’s theory, which really is a complete circumvention, it seems, of the appointments clause?» the judge asked.

Veteran D.C. lawyer Abbe Lowell, known for his involvement in lawsuits challenging the Trump administration, represented the defendants contesting Habba’s appointment.

Two sets of defendants facing run-of-the-mill charges brought the challenge to Habba, saying she should not be allowed to prosecute them because she was an invalid U.S. attorney.

TRUMP NOMINEES SQUEEZED BETWEEN ‘BLUE SLIPS’ AND BLUE OBSTRUCTION

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks as President Donald Trump looks on during a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Habba had no path to Senate confirmation, in part because New Jersey’s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, did not approve of her through the Senate’s blue slip tradition.

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That precedent has drawn Trump’s ire as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, stands firmly behind blue slips, which require home state senators to approve of U.S. attorney and district judge nominees.

Trump recently conveyed, through his firing of former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, that earning Democratic senators’ approval could be disqualifying in his view, setting up a stalemate with the upper chamber over his nominees in blue states.

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As President Donald Trump’s administration aims to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, a European Union official asserted that Russia must face accountability for its «crimes,» according to a report.

European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection Michael McGrath warned against allowing «impunity,» opining that it «would be a historic mistake of huge proportions.»

«I don’t think history will judge kindly any effort to wipe the slate clean for Russian crimes in Ukraine,» McGrath said, according to Politico. «They must be held accountable for those crimes and that will be the approach of the European Union in all of these discussions.

«Were we to do so, to allow for impunity for those crimes, we would be sowing the seeds of the next round of aggression and the next invasion,» he noted, according to the outlet. «And I believe that that would be a historic mistake of huge proportions.»

UKRAINE PEACE TALKS PRODUCTIVE AS EX-GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL SAYS COUNTRY RETHINKING ‘UNCOMPROMISING’ STANCE

«We cannot give up on the rights of the victims of Russian aggression and Russian crimes,» McGrath asserted, according to the outlet. «Millions of lives have been taken or destroyed, and people forcibly removed, and we have ample evidence.» 

EX-CIA STATION CHIEF WARNS PUTIN USING TALKS TO GAIN LEVERAGE AS UKRAINE DELEGATION MEETS TOP TRUMP OFFICIALS

President Donald Trump speaks to the press aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, D.C., on Nov. 30, 2025. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed gratitude toward the Trump administration.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a press conference with Pedro Sanchez, Spanish prime minister (not pictured), during his official visit to the headquarters of the Spanish government in Palacio de la Moncloa. (Alberto Gardin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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«I am grateful to the United States, to President Trump’s team, and to the President personally for the time that is being invested so intensively in defining the steps to end the war,» he noted in part of a post on X.

The Republican-controlled Indiana House returns to session on Monday to take action on congressional redistricting pushed by President Donald Trump.

And the GOP-dominated state Senate, in a major reversal, will reconvene in one week to «make a final decision on any redistricting proposal sent from the House.»

The proposed new map would create another GOP-leaning congressional district in the solidly Republican Midwestern state.

Indiana is the latest battlefield in the high-stakes redistricting showdown pitting Trump and Republicans versus Democrats to shape the 2026 midterm landscape as the GOP defends its razor-thin House majority.

TRUMP TURNS UP HEAT ON FELLOW REPUBLICANS IN PUSH TO REDRAW CONGRESSIONAL MAPS AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

State House Speaker Todd Huston announced last week that «House Republicans will gavel in on Monday, Dec. 1, reconvening the 2026 regular session. All legislative business will be considered beginning next week, including redrawing the state’s congressional map.»

Despite pressure from Trump and his political team, Rodric Bray, the Republican leader in the Indiana Senate, announced two weeks ago that there wasn’t enough support in the chamber to move forward with redistricting.

DEEP-POCKETED CONSERVATIVE GROUP ‘ALL IN’ ON HELPING TRUMP REDISTRICTING PUSH

Trump, in response, repeatedly threatened to back primary challenges against state Republican lawmakers who didn’t support his congressional redistricting push.

«A RINO State Senator, Rodric Bray, who doesn’t care about keeping the Majority in the House in D.C., is the primary problem. Soon, he will have a Primary Problem, as will any other politician who supports him in this stupidity,» Trump warned in a recent social media post.

President Donald Trump, seen pointing as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Sept. 11, 2025, is targeting Indiana Republican lawmakers who are not supportive of the president’s congressional redistricting push. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Bray confirmed in a statement last week that the state Senate would return into session to take action on whatever redistricting proposal passes the House.

«The issue of redrawing Indiana’s congressional maps mid-cycle has received a lot of attention and is causing strife here in our state. To resolve this issue, the Senate intends to reconvene as part of the regular 2026 session on Dec. 8,» Bray wrote.

Republicans currently control seven of Indiana’s nine congressional districts, and any new map passed by the GOP supermajority in the legislature would likely shift the state’s 1st Congressional District from blue-leaning to a red-leaning seat.

Trump has been twisting elbows in his attempt to make Indiana the latest Republican-controlled state to change their congressional maps. The president has called state lawmakers and Vice President JD Vance visited the state twice earlier this autumn to discuss redistricting.

TRUMP TARGETS RED STATE REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS IN PUSH FOR CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING

Trump has also taken some jabs at Republican Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana, arguing that the governor «perhaps, is not working the way he should to get the necessary Votes.»

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, seen speaking during a press conference on Oct. 30, 2025, supports President Donald Trump’s push for congressional redistricting. (Michael Gard/Post-Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

While Trump has called Braun «a good man,» he has warned he «must produce on this, or he will be the only Governor, Republican or Democrat, who didn’t.»

But Braun, pointing to the president, has touted that he is «committed to standing with him on the critical issue of passing fair maps in Indiana to ensure the MAGA agenda is successful in Congress.»

NEWSOM TAKES VICTORY LAP AFTER LANDSLIDE REDISTRICTING VICTORY IN CALIFORNIA

The push by the president in Indiana is part of a broad effort by Trump’s political team and the GOP to pad the party’s razor-thin House majority ahead of the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

Trump is aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push. And Florida and Kansas are also mulling redrawing their maps.

«We must keep the Majority at all costs,» Trump wrote recently.

But two federal judges in Texas delivered a blow to Trump and Republicans, by ruling that the state can’t use the newly drawn map in next year’s elections. The Supreme Court put in place a temporary stay on the ruling, ahead of weighing in on the dispute.

Meanwhile, Democrats are fighting back.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during an election night press conference at a California Democratic Party office Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo)

California voters a month ago overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative which will temporarily sidetrack the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and return the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democrat-dominated legislature.

That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which would counter the passage earlier this year in Texas of a new map that aims to create up to five right-leaning House seats.

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Illinois and Maryland, two blue states, and Virginia, where Democrats control the legislature, are also taking steps or seriously considering redistricting.

And in a blow to Republicans, a Utah district judge last month rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.