The Trump administration took the fight over who controls U.S. attorney appointments to a whole new level, firing a Seattle-based prosecutor less than an hour after he was picked for the job without the blessing of the administration.
"District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them," acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote Wednesday on X as he was testifying before the Senate in his confirmation hearing, calling out a U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington state panel for elevating Judge Roger Rogoff to be the top federal prosecutor in Seattle.
"WDWA judges abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration so that the selected U.S. Attorney is qualified to serve in the administration," Blanche said. "Roger Rogoff has been fired by the President."
That post came after Rogoff, 57, a former King County Superior Court judge and longtime state and federal prosecutor, was sworn in before 8 a.m. local time at the federal courthouse in downtown Seattle as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.
He then went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and asked to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, the Trump administration’s preferred choice for the job, whose 120-day interim term expired in February.
While Rogoff waited in the lobby, he received an email notifying him that Trump had removed him from office.
Rogoff's situation was not mentioned in Blanche's Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, but Blanche is back before the Senate again Thursday and Rogoff now might be a notable topic of discussion during his confirmation process.
The quick dismissal came after all 17 active and senior federal judges in the deep-blue district appointed Rogoff to the vacancy. The judges, appointed by five presidents (10 by Democrats and seven by Republicans), had opened an application process after the administration did not send Floyd’s nomination to the Senate and instead kept him in place by making him first assistant U.S. attorney while leaving the top job vacant.
U.S. attorneys, who serve as the Justice Department’s chief federal prosecutors in each district, are normally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Federal law allows the attorney general to name an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days. If that period expires without a confirmed nominee, district judges may appoint someone to serve until the vacancy is filled.
Because of obstruction by Democrats in the narrowly held Senate, the Trump administration has resorted to using acting titles and other personnel moves to keep its prosecutors in place. Courts have pushed back in several Democrat-heavy districts like Seattle and New Jersey, issuing legal challenges to the Justice Department and White House authority.
"I don’t think it’s the way to run the Department of Justice," Rogoff told The New York Times. "When you have this sort of made up way of putting people in these positions, the process breaks down."
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., opposed Floyd for the U.S. attorney job and blasted Rogoff’s quick firing.
"Throughout his career, he has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to public service, and he was appointed legally by the federal judges in the Western District of Washington," Murray wrote in a statement. "This administration doesn’t want to deal with advice and consent — they just want to install cronies to carry out a corrupt political agenda."
Trump administration officials have long noted that the "advise and consent" role of the Senate does not grant Democrats against Trump's administrative priorities to be a hard block on his agenda and nominees, though.
Roger Rogoff was sworn in as U.S. attorney in Seattle by federal judges, but Trump fired him within the hour as Todd Blanche announced on X.
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