Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday disqualified Nevada’s federal prosecutor Sigal Chattah to oversee four criminal cases, and another setback in action against President Donald Trump’s administration to continue to rule.
U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell found that Chattah was not working as a U.S. attorney so “it was illegal for her to participate in these cases.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Chattah recently served as chairman of the Republican National Committee of Nevada and was appointed as a 120-day U.S. lawyer in late March.
When her term is about to expire around July 26, the Trump administration expanded her appointment under another federal law to make her a U.S. attorney, a move that effectively led the lead in the U.S. District Court to fail to appoint someone to that position.
Nevada’s federal public defender posed legal challenges to Chata’s authority in four separate criminal cases, believing she should be disqualified because her appointment was illegal and demanded that the case be dismissed.
Chattah is a few American lawyers appointed through unusual methods across the country. The Justice Department has taken similar personnel actions to hold other supreme prosecutors in place, including Alina Habba, a former private attorney in New Jersey, John Sarcone in the upstate New York area, Bilal Essayli in central California and Ryan Ellison in New Mexico.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Haba’s appointment was illegal and that she was not eligible for any ongoing cases. The Justice Department is introducing this decision.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Chattah has asked the FBI to investigate the debunked Republican claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and she hopes an investigation will affect the Congressional race and Ensnar Democrats.
(Reported by Sarah N. Lynch; Editors of Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis and Lincoln Feast.)
