President Donald Trump has extended the term of the interim US Attorney in Nevada, Sigal Chattah, changing her status to “acting,” in a potential escalation of the Justice Department’s confrontation with courts over chief prosecutors.
Chattah, a former Nevada Republican Party committeewoman who’s been forcefully opposed by the state’s two Democratic senators, is now the acting US attorney under the Vacancies Reform Act, effective Monday, a DOJ spokeswoman said.
Her 120-day interim period was set to expire as soon as Tuesday, at which point the US District Court for the District of Nevada’s judges would’ve had an opportunity to appoint her indefinitely.
It’s unclear if the judiciary had privately expressed disapproval of Chattah to DOJ or had suggested a different preference for the court-appointed US attorney. Representatives for the court and US Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
But by moving to keep her at least a day before the deadline—and before the federal bench issued a public statement—the DOJ may be avoiding a similar situation to what played out earlier this month in New Jersey.
The district court’s attempt to install a different New Jersey US attorney than Trump’s pick, Alina Habba, resulted in Attorney General Pam Bondi firing the alternate choice and reinserting Habba.
Another parallel circumstance may play out later this week with temporary Los Angeles US Attorney Bill Essayli.
Under the VRA, the president can appoint Chattah for 210 additional days. She hasn’t been nominated with the Senate, which would give her a four-year term.
Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) has already said that if Chattah were to be nominated, she wouldn’t return the blue slip, which under Senate rules would derail the nomination. When Chattah was first announced as Trump’s interim pick for the job in March, Cortez Masto called Chattah “an election denier who has advocated for political violence.”
When Chattah ran for Nevada attorney general in 2022, news reports published a leaked text from Chattah, with an expletive, saying her potential Democratic opponent, Aaron Ford—a Black man—"should be hanging” from a crane.
Before assuming control of the Las Vegas-based district April 1, Chattah ran her own private practice and taught political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She earned a law degree from Widener University.
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