Trump Fires Seattle's New Top Federal Prosecutor Less Than an Hour After Judges Appointed Him

Roger Rogoff got sworn in as the top federal prosecutor for western Washington before 8 a.m. Wednesday. He was fired before 9.

Rogoff, a former judge and longtime state and federal prosecutor, was picked unanimously by the district's federal judges, according to the Associated Press, as reported by PBS News. That's 17 active and senior judges, appointed by five different presidents going back decades, all agreeing on one name. He walked to the U.S. Attorney's Office to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, the man he was replacing, and got an email while sitting in the lobby telling him he'd been removed.

Rogoff told the AP he's now consulting lawyers about suing over the firing.

How This Happened

Normally the president nominates U.S. attorneys and the Senate confirms them. When an interim appointment expires without a confirmed nominee, federal law lets the district's judges appoint someone to fill the gap. That's what happened in Seattle.

But the Trump administration has been using a different playbook nationwide. Floyd, a former immigration judge, was named interim U.S. attorney by Trump last October. His nomination never went to the Senate. When his 120-day interim term ran out in February, instead of letting the judges pick a replacement, the administration retitled Floyd as "first assistant U.S. attorney" and left the top job technically vacant, according to PBS News. That kept Floyd effectively running the office without ever facing Senate confirmation or a judicial appointment.

A federal appeals court panel expressed skepticism in May that this maneuver was legal. The Seattle judges responded by opening applications for the U.S. attorney position and appointing a bipartisan panel to vet candidates. Wednesday's unanimous order naming Rogoff was the result.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the firing on social media, arguing the 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." His position, in plain terms: the president has the authority to remove any U.S. attorney, including one seated by judges, and the judges skipped consulting the White House before acting.

U.S. attorneys serve at the president's pleasure once appointed, and nothing in the relevant statute strips the president of removal power just because judges made the pick. If Blanche is right that the judges bypassed a consultation norm, the administration's move looks less like a raw power grab and more like enforcing a boundary it believes the courts crossed first.

The problem for that argument is the same maneuver has now shown up in multiple districts. According to reporting referenced in coverage of the episode, similar first-assistant shuffles happened in New Jersey and Virginia, keeping Trump-picked prosecutors in charge indefinitely without Senate votes. When a workaround becomes a pattern across several U.S. attorney's offices, it stops looking like a one-off dispute over etiquette and starts looking like a deliberate strategy to sideline both the Senate confirmation process and judicial backstop written into the law.

The Political Reaction

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who had already opposed Floyd's tenure, criticized the speed of Rogoff's removal, according to PBS News, saying Rogoff had shown "an outstanding commitment to public service" throughout his career.

There's no indication in available reporting that any Republican senators have publicly defended or criticized the firing specifically, though the administration's broader approach to acting U.S. attorney appointments has drawn bipartisan judicial pushback, including from the May appeals court panel.

What's Unresolved

No lawsuit has been filed yet. Rogoff said he is still consulting with lawyers. If he sues, the case would likely turn on a question the appeals court already flagged skepticism about in May: can the administration keep an unconfirmed prosecutor in charge indefinitely by juggling job titles, or does that violate the statute governing vacancies?

Floyd remains in the U.S. Attorney's Office in some capacity following Rogoff's removal, though it's unclear from current reporting whether he has resumed the "first assistant" role or another title. The Justice Department has not announced a permanent nominee for the Senate to consider.

For now, western Washington has a U.S. attorney's office where the formally, judicially appointed occupant lasted less than an hour, and the administration's preferred arrangement is back in place.