A US appeals court has temporarily halted the reinstatement of Roger Rogoff, the Seattle-area federal prosecutor who was removed from office by President Donald Trump.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration an administrative stay on Sunday, meaning Rogoff will not return to his position as US attorney for the Western District of Washington while the court examines the broader legal dispute.
The stay is intended to preserve the existing situation while the administration’s appeal moves forward. The order was issued without being signed by individual judges of the appeals court.
Rogoff was dismissed in July, shortly after federal judges in Washington had selected him to serve as the district’s US attorney. He subsequently challenged his removal in court, becoming the first court-appointed US attorney to contest a dismissal by the Trump administration.
The case took a turn in Rogoff’s favour last week when Chief Judge Stanley Bastian of the federal court in Yakima ordered that he be returned to the position.
That ruling, however, will not take effect for now because of the appeals court’s latest order.
The dispute is part of a broader confrontation between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary over the authority to appoint and remove US attorneys. Federal law permits district courts to appoint prosecutors to fill certain vacancies, while the administration has argued that such court-appointed prosecutors remain subject to presidential removal.
Several court-appointed federal prosecutors have faced dismissal during Trump’s second term, turning their appointments into a wider test of the balance between executive power and judicial authority.
