A newly installed U.S. attorney in Seattle is challenging the Trump administration in federal court after being removed from his post before he’d even finished his first hour on the job — a dispute that could reshape how vacant federal prosecutor positions get filled going forward.
Roger Rogoff, a former judge with a background as both a state and federal prosecutor, took the oath of office last week to become U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington. Word of his firing arrived about 54 minutes later. On Tuesday, Rogoff responded by filing suit, asking a court to declare the removal unlawful and to reinstate him in the role until the Senate confirms a permanent successor.
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A Judicial Appointment, Not a Presidential One
What makes Rogoff’s situation unusual is how he got the job in the first place. He wasn’t nominated by the president — he was chosen unanimously by a panel of federal judges sitting in Seattle, using a mechanism written into federal law for exactly this kind of situation. The Western District of Washington had gone unstaffed at the top for months and once a temporary appointment period expires without Senate action, the statute hands the selection power to the district’s judges.
Rogoff’s legal team argues that Trump’s decision to fire him effectively overrides a process Congress deliberately assigned to the judicial branch rather than the White House. The complaint, filed against Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Department of Justice, also raises a constitutional claim under the Appointments Clause. Attorney Jason A. Rittereiser, representing Rogoff, wrote that the president’s move amounts to blocking Congress’s own statutory design — not just this one appointment, but potentially any future judicial pick the administration doesn’t sign off on.
DOJ Says Judges Skipped a Step
The Justice Department sees it differently. A spokesperson said the panel of judges never looped in the department before settling on Rogoff, calling that a break from standard practice. “Consistent with other firings of this type, this is wholly within the President’s authority,” the spokesperson said, after the White House referred inquiries about the lawsuit to DOJ.
Blanche echoed that position online, stating that while district judges can name a temporary U.S. attorney, the president retains the ability to remove that person afterward. He further argued that the judicial panel had strayed from what he called a long-standing informal norm — consulting with the administration in advance to make sure a selected U.S. attorney would be someone the administration considered fit to serve.
Not an Isolated Incident
Rogoff is the first person in this situation to actually take the administration to court, but he’s not the first to be pushed out of a judge-appointed U.S. attorney role almost as soon as he arrived.
In Virginia, Lindsey Halligan — a Trump loyalist who had gone after the president’s political opponents — left her post as acting U.S. attorney once a federal judge determined her appointment had been improper. Judges then unanimously tapped longtime litigator James Hundley for the job. He was removed by the Justice Department just hours after being sworn in.
A nearly identical scenario played out in New York’s Northern District. There, John Sarcone III, another Trump ally, exited the position after a court ruled his appointment invalid. Judges named Donald Kinsella to succeed him and the administration fired Kinsella shortly afterward, in February.
After both of those firings, Blanche — then serving as deputy attorney general — publicly maintained that appointment authority for U.S. attorneys belongs to the president, not to federal judges.
The Bigger Legal Question at Stake
Under normal circumstances, a U.S. attorney is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. When that process stalls, the attorney general can name an interim U.S. attorney for up to 120 days. If no Senate-confirmed nominee is in place once that window closes, federal law then shifts the appointment authority to the district’s judges — the exact provision at the center of Rogoff’s case.
Several courts have already ruled that some prosecutors installed during Trump’s second term, including certain appointees made by former Attorney General Pam Bondi, were serving without proper legal authority. Critics argue the administration has used firings like Rogoff’s, Hundley’s and Kinsella’s to keep control over U.S. attorney vacancies rather than let the judicial fallback process run its course.
Rogoff’s lawsuit now puts that tension squarely before a federal judge, who will have to decide whether the president can dismiss a U.S. attorney seated through the courts’ statutory authority — or whether, once Congress hands that power to the judiciary, the White House no longer has the final word.
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