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Tag: functions

  • Judge Declares Alina Habba's Roles As US Attorney For New Jersey 'Unlawful'

    Judge Declares Alina Habba's Roles As US Attorney For New Jersey 'Unlawful'

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A federal judge on Thursday found that Alina Habba, a former attorney to President Donald Trump, has been unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey since July.

    Alina Habba speaks after being sworn in as interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, in the Oval Office of the White House on March 28, 2025. Pool via AP

    “Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania wrote in a 77-page opinion.

    “And because she is not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity, she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases,” Brann said.

    Trump appointed Habba in March as interim U.S. attorney, a role limited to 120 days unless extended by a vote of the district’s judges. When Habba’s term expired in July, the judges opted to replace her with her second-in-command, Desiree Grace. The Justice Department responded by firing Grace and reinstalling Habba, this time designating her as “Special Attorney to the Attorney General.”

    By law, interim U.S. attorneys may serve only 120 days before district judges either appoint a temporary successor or the Senate confirms the administration’s nominee. If neither happens, the office’s first assistant may temporarily assume the role. In New Jersey, that would have been Grace, but her removal cleared the way for Habba, now the most senior official in the office, to stay in charge.

    The Trump administration took this unusual maneuver as Democrats continue to block the president’s U.S. attorney nominees from getting a full Senate vote. While the administration has extended several interim appointments by sidestepping Senate confirmation and judicial appointment, Habba’s is so far the only one to face a formal legal challenge.

    The challenge was brought by three criminal defendants in New Jersey, who argued that Habba lacked legal authority to prosecute them after her 120-day interim appointment ended in July. They asked the court to throw out their indictments, claiming that any case filed under her leadership was invalid.

    Brann agreed that Habba had no legal authority but declined to dismiss those charges. Instead, he ruled that anyone who prosecutes them “under the supervision or authority of Ms. Habba” would be subject to disqualification, and that any prosecutorial actions she has made since July 1 should be declared voided.

    The case was reassigned to Brann after Michael A. Chagares, chief judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, ordered it moved out of the District of New Jersey. In a brief, one-sentence directive, Chagares said the trial was being transferred to the Middle District of Pennsylvania “in the public interest,” offering no further explanation.

    Anticipating an appeal, Brann stayed his ruling and allowed Habba to remain in place while higher courts review the matter.

    The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. It has argued that the president has broad discretion to decide who leads U.S. attorney offices.

    “The President has made clear that he will not permit anyone other than Ms. Habba to fill the current vacancy in the office of the United States Attorney on a temporary basis. That is his prerogative; this Court cannot second-guess it,” the department wrote in a court filing.

    Shortly after Habba took office, she opened an investigation into New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy over the state’s immigration policies. No charges have been filed so far in connection with the inquiry.

    In May, her office charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) with assaulting federal officers while McIver and two other lawmakers were conducting a “congressional oversight inspection” at an immigration detention center in Newark. Prosecutors allege that McIver tried to block the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who had been barred by federal agents from joining the delegation.

    McIver has denied wrongdoing and is seeking dismissal of the case.

    Habba’s office also charged Baraka with trespassing, but later dropped the case.

    Habba’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

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  • Are task management systems turning you into a micro manager?

    Are task management systems turning you into a micro manager?

    As a leader looking to inspire via digital means in 2021, don’t fall foul of the task list negative management style trap. Instead read this and remember how to manage task lists effectively to boost morale in your team culture, not sever it.

    Picture the scene, it’s Friday six months into 2020 and your team is totally displaced. They’re working from home, all within a one hour radius of you and yet as the founder and boss you’ve never felt so disconnected.
    You begin to panic. Is enough being done? How without your watchful eye and without the line manger’s underneath you collating the work and pushing it through can it possibly be done? You start to panic. So you send a negative email around to your work force saying that whilst the mini tasks on the task management software seem to be getting ticked off you just don’t ‘feel’ like work is being completed.

    If this is you, STOP TYPING THE EMAIL MESSAGE RIGHT NOW.

    This is your issue, not your team’s.
    This is a common problem arising which is immensely frustrating both for managers and staff working on task management systems. The issue arises out of the task list which is meant to give structure and guidance, however the appearance of one simple sentence typed in a hurry actually has the affect of simplifying a task to the point where it looks as if it can be achieved in a matter of moments, max hours.
    Yes there’s the timeline functions and projected deadlines, but neither of those actually let your CEO/founder know how much time is expected to be spent on each respective task and whether there are any roadblocks along the way.
    If you’re a CEO struggling to get o top of where your company is at when you’re all working from home, remember this: just because you can now view a list of someone’s work day on a team project does not necessarily mean that you are aware of the pitfalls faced when your team member has attempted to action it. Perhaps it is in mid-progress. Perhaps they’ve completed it and forgotten to update the systems. Either way, you have to remember when you read it that it’s a task management system, not a direct record of every single iota of their day to get the task done. If you were working pre-Covid in the office with this team member, would you want to have each minute task broken down for you? No of course you wouldn’t, so why now?

    Ah you say, why don’t we just break the task down into all of its many subsections?

    Now this is where the danger happens. At first it seems logical to break a task down into subsections – of course it does, no argument there. But this is again a slippery slope. Recently I’ve had to deal with someone request sub, sub, sub sections on tasks and by the time the task list has been filled out I could have executed on it, ticked it off and moved onto the next one.
    Task lists are a rabbit hole and a dangerous one for a few solid reasons:

    As a leader you start to analyse all the other steps they might be missing
    You spend more time worrying about organising the task list than doing the actual job
    Your team member feels unappreciated for the gargantuan amount of work behind each successful task being signed off
    You add more tasks to the list not realising how long each task will take to a your potentially already overtasked colleague
    Your panic rises
    Your trust in your employee lowers
    The respect your employee had in you wanes as they feel misunderstood and untrusted
    Bit by bit the positive work culture that you have strived so hard to cultivate cracks

    What have you forgotten? You don’t just pay your team to spend all their time listing their jobs on a task management system – at some point they need to get off the software and do their work.
    Getting obsessive about subtasks? What does this say about you?
    If you’re the SME business owner with only a few members of staff and they’re doing work that you’ve previously done to get the company up and running then you know the main stages of each job. However if you’re panicking about handing the work over and trusting a member of your team with it, fixating on every single minute subtask is actually a sign that you’re entering the dangerous waters of micro management. Trust is key when trying to inspire a positive to action work culture.
    How to work and lead positively on task management systems
    If you find yourself beginning to obsessively check task lists and subtask lists, pull yourself back and schedule a catch up with your line manager first. Ask your line manager’s to manage task lists in line with their duties and have them report on the overall tasks and main achievements of their team each week. Remember that everyone has a different working style and a task might be 95% completed but not updated yet or it might be hinging on a phone call for it to be finally ticked off. If your team are spending more time working than updating the task list obsessively then that’s a good thing right?
    Request zooms with staff when you want to congratulate them or go over a particular issue brought to you by your line manager. Use that opportunity to find out whether the staff member is happy, what can be done to better their work satisfaction and ask if they think their task list/work load is still reasonable. A lot of people’s workloads rose in 2020 which may not be sustainable through 2021.
    If you use a rewards based morale system, ensure that it’s correctly set up for use with your task management system, so that a staff member and/or team are still sent rewards for their efforts.
    Crucially …
    When someone has completed a main task on their list, you must give them pause to respect it. Yes it’s a list and you know that they’ll be jumping onto the next pointer as it’s their job to do so. However, not recognising when a gargantuan job has been completed, simply viewing it as a one-liner on a list completely demoralises the person who’s stressed and worked on that task for weeks, maybe months. Take time to celebrate their efforts before jumping in on the next task. Give them the rest of the day off, send an email around, allocate a reward, tell them to enjoy their weekend; they’ve earnt it …
    A task management system can either be your route to micro management or an effective task list  and document sharing tool that indicates of how projects are progressing. Choose and act wisely.