Suit tests White House power over court-appointed prosecutors

WASHINGTON — The top federal prosecutor in Seattle who was fired last week less than an hour after being sworn in sued over his termination Tuesday, teeing up a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s efforts to install its own picks in powerful Justice Department posts.1

Roger Rogoff is the latest in a series of judicially appointed U.S. attorneys to be ousted by the Trump administration from their posts but is believed to be the first of that group to sue over the removal. His action creates a court case that will test the Justice Department’s authority to appoint — and fire — prosecutors.

Rogoff was unanimously appointed to the job of U.S. attorney for western Washington by the federal judges in the district. But shortly after he was sworn in last Wednesday, he received an email from the Trump administration informing him that President Donald Trump had ordered his termination.

The lawsuit contends that the abrupt firing was unconstitutional and disregarded the authority of the judges of the district to name Rogoff to the job until the vacancy could be filled through a Senate-confirmed nominee.

“The President’s actions violate the law, and they ignore the protections of the Constitution of the United States,” Rogoff said in a statement issued through the law firm representing him. “His removal of me, like his removal of other court-appointed U.S. attorneys across the country, is illegal and cannot stand.”

The case is expected to test the boundary between the president’s removal power over executive branch officials and a statutory mechanism that allows federal judges to fill U.S. attorney vacancies when a Senate-confirmed nominee is not in place.

Footnotes

  1. MSI previously reported that Trump fired Rogoff less than an hour after the judges appointed him, one in an accelerating series of removals of court-selected interim U.S. attorneys. (See Trump fires Seattle U.S. attorney less than an hour after judges appoint him) ↩