LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Interim U.S. attorney Sigal Chattah resigned that temporary assignment on Tuesday, and was immediately appointed as the acting U.S. attorney, allowing her to continue as the state's top federal prosecutor.
The move allows Chattah to avoid required Senate confirmation, and also prevents Nevada's federal judges from appointing a replacement, as the law allows.
WATCH | Steve Sebelius discusses Sigal Chattah's appointment with former and current elected officials
It's similar to moves made by the Trump administration in the Northern District of New York and the District of New Jersey, where efforts to appoint someone other than a Trump nominee have been thwarted by various maneuvers.
Chattah — a controversial Republican lawyer best known for suing the Steve Sisolak administration during the COVID-19 pandemic to overturn a strict limit on church attendance — ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2022.
During that campaign, an associate of Chattah's released text messages that compared her Black Democratic opponent, Aaron Ford, to the head of Hamas and said "he should be hanging from a f——— crane."
Chattah denied the remark had racial overtones.
Before being appointed U.S. attorney, she was elected as Nevada's Republican National Committeewoman. Her name and photo still appear on the group's website, despite the traditionally nonpartisan nature of the U.S. attorney's job.
Usual process
Typically, a U.S. attorney is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, which is empowered to give "advice and consent" under the Constitution.
Interim U.S. attorneys can serve for 120 days, after which the judges of the U.S. District Court are empowered to name a repacement.
But as of Wednesday evening, Chattah has not been formally nominated for the job, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee's website.
According to the U.S. attorney's office, she resigned her interim appointment, after which she was named acting U.S. attorney and special attorney to the U.S. attorney general. That will allow her to continue in the job without Senate consent and will prevent the federal bench from replacing her.
Former Nevada U.S. attorney Greg Brower says the move is unusual, and creates an issue for senators.
"So this really is uncharted territory that we're in right now and I think it's really incumbent on the Senate, in a bipartisan way, to decide whether it wants to assert its authority in the face of what appears to be kind of an end run around its authority in this case," Brower said.
"And I have to think that as I am speaking to you from Washington today, there are Republican senators a few blocks from where I'm sitting talking about this and amongst each other and talking about what to do, because they're basically being cut out of the process in a way that's unprecedented."
Brower said similar situations that have taken place in Albany, New York, and New Jersey also are at odds with precedent.
Trust and confidence
Brower said the machinations in Chattah's case could be avoided.
"What Republican senators would prefer, even in this administration, is that the White House nominate candidates who can enjoy, can obtain bipartisan support, but that just hasn't been happening," he said. "And so that's why he see the workaround that we discussed a moment ago."
To be sure, Nevada U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, both Democrats, opposed Chattah's installation as U.S. attorney from the start. This week, 116 judges signed a letter urging Nevada's judges to appoint someone else to the job, although they never got a chance to do so.
And when news broke on Tuesday that Chattah would be continuing in the job, both senators took to X to express their concerns.
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That prompted Chattah to reply today on her personal X account, accusing Cortez Masto and Rosen of "political corruption."
A request for an interview with Chattah made through her office was not returned by deadline.
The program Chattah referenced — BEAD — stands for Broadband Equity Access, and is designed to bring broadband internet service to far-flung rural communities.
That prompted Rosen — in an interview Wednesday — to say Chattah's allegation was proof she shouldn't be in her job.
"She's just showing how unqualified she is for this job. This is baseless and ridiculous," Rosen said. "It's absolutely ridiculous that she would make this wild and baseless claim out of nowhere, again, showing how unqualified she is in disposition and demeanor for this job."
Rosen said she and Cortez Masto would continue to offer names to the White House of Republican lawyers who could pass a Senate vote, in the hopes of reaching a compromise.
"They have to be that kind of person who cooperates, to do the investigations that are important and be sure that justice is served," Rosen said. "We can't have someone who just is out there tweeting ridiculous allegations and slurs all the time on people. We cannot expect them to do the job. We want someone who's going to take this job in this position as seriously as it needs to be."
Brower said he wasn't familiar with Chattah's post, but that U.S. attorneys need to take care to avoid partisanship.
"I would say that it's important for any U.S. attorney in any district in the country, any [Justice Department] official in any position to be very, very careful to stay above the political fray and not say anything that could be interpreted by anybody to be, in the slightest way, a political statement or a statement of favoring one party or the other," he said.
Blue slip shredding
Chattah also posted on X a message from Trump's Truth Social account, in which he called on U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to do away with the "blue slip" tradition.
Blue slips are circulated among senators to see if they have an objection to a judicial or executive nominee from their state; if a senator fails to return a signed blue slip, a nomination can be killed.
Both Cortez Masto and Rosen have said they will not sign a blue slip for Chattah, which means Grassley would have to ignore their objections to move forward if Trump ever did nominate Chattah for the permanent U.S. attorney post.
"That has been the tradition," Brower said. "It's not in the Constitution, it's not a law, but it's been a tradition that has been observed in a bipartisan way. ... Senator Grassley, and I have to believe a majority of his colleagues, are intent on preserving the blue slip tradition and not pushing through nominees that home state senators object to."
Grassley appears to be standing firm, saying he was offended by Trump's suggestion.
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