Robert Frazer Appointed Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Ending Months of Legal Turmoil and Leadership Disputes

A longtime career prosecutor has been appointed to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, ending nearly a year of legal disputes and leadership turmoil within the office. Robert Frazer, who has served in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office for over 20 years and most recently held the position of senior trial counsel, was named interim U.S. attorney by the district’s chief judge on Monday. The appointment followed consultations between federal judges and senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The decision comes after a protracted conflict that began in March 2025 when former President Donald Trump appointed Alina Habba, one of his former personal attorneys, as interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Trump later nominated Habba for the permanent role, but the Senate did not act on her nomination. After her interim term expired, district judges appointed Desiree Leigh Grace, Habba’s first assistant, to the position. However, Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately fired Grace, labeling the judges’ appointment “politically minded,” and attempted to reinstate Habba. These actions were ruled unlawful by U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann and upheld by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Following these rulings, the DOJ tried an unconventional approach by appointing a trio of prosecutors to jointly lead the office, a move that was also challenged in court. Judge Brann ruled that the triumvirate was not lawfully in charge, and another judge suggested that Habba continued to exert influence behind the scenes. The leadership uncertainty caused delays and legal challenges to ongoing criminal prosecutions, with some defendants successfully contesting the legitimacy of the office’s authority. In one notable case, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi sharply criticized the DOJ’s leadership, stating that the department had “lost the confidence and the trust” of the court and the public.

The appointment of Frazer was welcomed by Habba, who now serves as a senior adviser to Bondi, and by New Jersey’s two Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim. In a joint statement, the senators criticized the Trump administration for attempting to bypass the Senate’s constitutional role in confirming U.S. attorneys. They expressed hope that the office could now move past the previous “chaos and partisanship” to focus on its core mission of combating violent crime, public corruption, drug trafficking, and protecting citizens’ rights. The DOJ has indicated it is prepared to seek superseding indictments in cases where prosecutions were jeopardized by the prior leadership disputes.

Similar controversies over interim U.S. attorney appointments have occurred in other districts, including the Eastern District of Virginia and the Northern District of New York, where judge-appointed prosecutors were also fired by the DOJ. The resolution in New Jersey marks a rare instance where federal judges and the Justice Department have reached an agreement to restore stable leadership to a U.S. attorney’s office after months of legal battles.