Attorney General Pam Bondi is putting federal law enforcement to work looking for an individual who ‘threatened’ acting New Jersey Attorney Alina Habba. An unidentified and at-large suspect tried to ‘confront’ Habba on Wednesday night, Bondi detailed in a post to X. She said that the individual ‘destroyed property’ and promised her office would ‘find this person.’ ‘I will not be intimidated by radical lunatics for doing my job,’ Habba wrote in an X post about the incident.
A person close to Habba told the Daily Mail that the US Attorney for New Jersey was not in her office at the time – but that it was not clear how an unauthorized individual made it up to the seventh floor. ‘Any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period,’ Bondi wrote on X in her Thursday post. ‘This is unfortunately becoming a trend as radicals continue to attack law enforcement agents around the country.’
She assured that the Justice Department is using all tools to track down the suspect and ensure the safety of all federal prosecutors and federal agents. Habba was Counselor to the President during President Donald Trump’s first few months in office after serving as a firebrand defense attorney in his personal lawsuits and a campaign surrogate in the later days of the 2024 election cycle.
In late March, Habba was sworn in as interim US Attorney for the District of New Jersey – her home state. This kick-started a 12-day term that expired in late July and led to legal disputes over whether she could continue in her capacity as top attorney in New Jersey. Habba is just the latest MAGA-aligned individual to receive threats or experience acts of violence against them.
Republicans have complained that left-wing violence has been on the rise and point to the September assassination of conservative luminary Charlie Kirk, who was an ally of Trump and the MAGA agenda. Habba is also an outspoken Trump ally who is now in a top attorney role.
A panel of judges for the District of New Jersey declined to extend Habba’s interim term in July and appointed her first assistant, Desiree Leigh Grace, to lead the office instead. Just hours later, Bondi fired Grace and said the judges were interfering with the President’s Article II powers.
Then the White House withdrew Habba’s Senate nomination and placed her in an ‘acting’ capacity under the federal vacancy rule. She then had 210 days from that point to stay in that role, giving her 98 days left in the acting role as of Thursday.
