Left inset: Roger Rogoff sits for an interview about his firing on July 15, 2026 (KING). Main: Donald Trump, President of the United States, and Marco Rubio, United States Secretary of State, attend a press conference at the NATO Summit at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, Turkiye, on July 8, 2026 (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via AP).
Not even an hour after a federal district court in Washington state exercised its authority to appoint a U.S. attorney during a vacancy, the Trump administration sent that top prosecutor packing, perhaps inviting yet another constitutional challenge.
Chief Judge David Estudillo of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on Wednesday posted an order naming Roger Scott Rogoff, a former federal and state prosecutor, judge, and former attorney for Microsoft, as U.S. attorney "until the vacancy is filled by an officer appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate in accordance with the United States Constitution, Article II, Section 2 and 28 U.S.C. § 541(a)."
As it turned out, the Seattle-area appointment was exceedingly short-lived, reportedly not even lasting an hour after Rogoff was sworn in.
The DOJ apparently took exception to the court acting on its own.
In comments to the New York Times, the DOJ reportedly explained that the court "did not coordinate" with the executive branch and thus Rogoff was out, consistent with what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said would happen if the courts acted "unilaterally" on such appointments — even though 28 U.S.C. § 546(d) makes no mention of some coordination requirement.
The statute says that if a temporary appointment "expires under subsection (c)(2), the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled."
The DOJ's turf war with the courts on these U.S. attorney appointments has been active since President Donald Trump's first term.
In summer 2025, when the DOJ was headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the administration made a point of immediately ousting a New Jersey federal court's pick to replace Trump ally Alina Habba when Habba's stint as interim U.S. attorney was set to expire.
The short-term result was Habba's resignation as interim U.S. attorney and her simultaneous installation as acting U.S. attorney, but multiple courts subsequently found the musical-chairs-like dance unconstitutional across jurisdictions.
The administration similarly propped up Trump loyalist John Sarcone as acting U.S. attorney in the Northern District of New York.
Sarcone is known for issuing grand jury subpoenas to investigate New York Attorney General Letitia James' office for its civil fraud investigation of Trump. A judge ended up quashing those subpoenas in January, however, because they were issued while Sarcone was "not lawfully serving" as top prosecutor.
Nonetheless, the DOJ immediately fired Sarcone's court-appointed replacement the next month. One week after that, the DOJ did the same for Lindsey Halligan's court-appointed replacement in the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan is a former Trump personal attorney whose unlawful appointment doomed prosecutions of AG James and former FBI Director James Comey.
Now there's a question of whether Rogoff will file a lawsuit to challenge more "unconstitutional" sidestepping of the Senate's advice and consent on U.S. attorney picks.
Rogoff reportedly told the Times that the Trump administration's approach will only make it harder on prosecutors to show "judges and defense attorneys and victims and defendants" that they have credibility when the presumption of regularity is waning.
"So it's just not a way to run an office and by the way, it's also unconstitutional," Rogoff reportedly said.
In an interview with local NBC affiliate KING, Rogoff said that he was told about his firing by email, and that he was removed pursuant to Trump's authority.