Acting Nevada U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah has a peculiar sense of what her job involves. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in being the top prosecutor in the state and protecting its residents from harm. Nope, it’s her perch to pursue election conspiracy theories.
Chattah has asked the FBI to investigate voter fraud claims about the 2020 election, claims which have long been disproven. When she met with them, she handed them a thumb drive from the Nevada Republican Party, filled with so-called data about undocumented people voting and a racist theory about Native Americans being paid for their votes. She’s also mused about a “reallocation of census numbers” to affect a House race for a seat currently held by a Democrat.
Chattah also thinks it is her role to work to exonerate the six Republicans who were prosecuted by the state for their participation in the fake elector scheme during the 2020 election. It should go without saying that normally, the top federal prosecutor in the state does not try to undo the criminal convictions of people convicted in state court.
But it gets worse.
Chattah actually represented one of those fake electors. That case was dismissed, but the state has appealed the dismissal, so the case remains pending. Chattah was sworn in as U.S. attorney on April 1, but a court filing shows that she didn’t withdraw from representing the fake elector until April 7, though it appears she did try to make the form look otherwise. On the court filing, the “7” has been crossed out and replaced with a “1.”
Masterful gambit, ma’am. They’ll never see through this clever ruse!
U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin
What Chattah is doing here is fairly similar to what Ed Martin did in his short-lived role as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. There, Martin dismissed charges against a Jan. 6 rioter that he had represented as a criminal defense attorney, and didn’t withdraw from that representation until two weeks later.
Chattah is another Trump U.S. attorney nominee where he has to play nomination shenanigans to keep her in her job, because there’s no way he wants to put this person in front of the Senate. The federal district court judges in Nevada could appoint Chattah as a temporary U.S. attorney without Senate confirmation, but in this instance, over 100 retired federal and state court judges asked the federal courts in Nevada not to permanently appoint her, saying she shows “extreme partisan bias.”
Oh, come on. What’s biased about saying that your political opponent should be hanged from a crane or that protesters should be shot or calling former Democratic U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman an “antisemitic ghetto rat”? Why do these judges hate free speech?
Chattah now faces the same sort of challenge that Alina Habba—who may or may not be the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey—did, which is that if Chattah is not legally in her position, criminal cases brought by Chattah should be dismissed, and she should be disqualified from further cases. A decision is expected on that case shortly.
Alina Habba
If what happened to Habba is any guide, this is not going to go well for Chattah. Last month, a federal judge ruled that Habba was not legally the U.S. attorney for New Jersey and hadn’t been since July 1, torpedoing the administration’s attempts to keep her there via temporary appointments. That way she didn’t have to go before the Senate after the federal judges in New Jersey voted not to keep her.
However, Chattah’s situation is a bit different. Rather than waiting for the Nevada federal judges to vote to reject her, the administration just appointed Chattah as acting U.S. attorney before her appointment as interim U.S. attorney expired. That is also most likely illegal under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which exists precisely so that the president can’t just string together a bunch of temporary appointments as a way to avoid putting his terrible candidates before the Senate.
This is all the result of Trump nominating the most craven loyalists to these jobs, people who are too out there even for the Republicans in the Senate, which is saying a lot given that they were willing to confirm Jeanine Pirro as U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.
Imagine being a worse bet than Pirro.
Trump has made clear that in his administration, loyalty, not competence, is what matters. And if that loyalty comes wrapped in a penchant for conspiracy theories and racism, like it is with Chattah? A big plus, as far as he is concerned.
The people of Nevada deserve so, so much better.
