Interim US attorney in Nevada appointed illegally, federal appeals court says

A federal appeals court panel ruled on Monday that an Israeli-born appointee for Nevada’s top federal prosecutorial role is disqualified from serving, upholding a previous order.

Sigal Chattah, the former Nevada chair for the Republican National Committee, took over as interim U.S. attorney in April 2025. The U.S. attorney position requires Senate confirmation, and those acting in the role can do so for only 120 days.

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Chattah resigned a day before her 120-day term was set to expire. Pam Bondi, then the U.S. attorney general, effectively kept Chattah in place using untested legal maneuvers, including appointing Chattah to a first assistant position after her 120-day term ran out.

She later elevated Chattah back into the acting head role.

A federal judge in Arizona ruled in September 2025 that Bondi’s method was “never intended by Congress.”

Chattah was then barred from supervising several criminal prosecutions she had been working on, as her status was no longer valid.

On Monday, a three-judge panel for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the earlier ruling. Under existing legislation, the automatic succession from first assistant to the acting head position applies only to those who were already in the first assistant position when a vacancy occurred, the trio said.

The Trump administration attempted a similar tactic in New Jersey, but an appeals court ruled last December that the appointment of Alina Habba there was invalid for the same reasons.

Critics of the administration say that the White House is trying to backdoor appointees into Senate-confirmed roles without actually going through the confirmation process.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday that it disagreed with the Chattah decision and plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Chattah was 14 when she emigrated to the United States with her parents. She came to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, representing churches in challenging Nevada’s 50-person occupancy lockdown limits.

She once compared the sitting Nevada attorney general to the leader of Hamas, later losing the attorney general election to him. She also called former congressman Jamaal Bowman an “antisemitic ghetto rat.”

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