A federal judge has disqualified a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor, stating she is “not validly serving” the state.
MAGA loyalist and 2020 election conspiracy theorist Sigal Chattah was appointed as interim U.S. attorney in March for a 120-day term, which expired in July.
The Trump administration reclassified her as the acting U.S. attorney, allowing her to remain Nevada’s top federal law enforcement official without Senate confirmation for an extra 210 days, a period due to expire in February.
Nevada federal defense lawyers in four cases questioned Chattah’s appointment, arguing that her term had ended in July.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Campbell sided with the defense lawyers and disqualified Chattah from overseeing those prosecutions.
“Given the Court’s conclusion that Ms. Chattah is not validly serving as Acting U.S. Attorney, her involvement in these cases would be unlawful,” Campbell, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said as part of a 32-page ruling. “The Court will disqualify Ms. Chattah from participating in or supervising Defendants’ prosecutions.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Chattah’s office for comment.
Chattah is the latest federal prosecutor whom the Trump administration has placed in a position of power without Senate confirmation. A New Jersey judge ruled in August that Alina Habba had been illegally serving as U.S. attorney after a similar extension of her role.
Habba, a former personal attorney for Trump, did not take the news well. “I am the pick of the president, I am the pick of Pam Bondi, our attorney general, and I will serve this country like I have for the last several years in any capacity,” she told Sean Hannity on Fox News.
”We will not fall to rogue judges, we will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job: respecting the president.”
Chattah previously ran her own law practice in Las Vegas and worked as a lawyer for the state Republican Party. She was unsuccessful as the Republican candidate for Nevada attorney general in 2022.
The ruling from the federal judge comes a day after Chattah asked the FBI to launch an investigation into voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Chattah claimed she had data from people living illegally in the U.S. who had voted in the 2020 election and some who allegedly received cash for ballots.
She also planned to exonerate six Republicans who posed as fake electors in an attempt to keep Donald Trump in power in 2020, and were prosecuted by Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford.
