Delaware replaces Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney without legal drama seen in New Jersey, Virginia

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Delaware has a new U.S. attorney, but the change of leadership occurred without the legal drama and tumult that has tainted the Trump administration’s picks in New Jersey, Virginia and other states.

The transition in Delaware was formalized Friday morning when the state’s federal judges — for the second time in a month — rejected President Donald Trump’s loyalist and handpicked appointee, former state Republican chair Julianne Murray.

The judges instead installed Murray’s first assistant, Benjamin Wallace, to the post that prosecutes gang violence, narcotics rings, wire fraud, tax evasion and a host of other federal crimes.

Murray told WHYY News she stepped down Thursday after about five months on the job,  paving the way for Wallace to be appointed.

She said she did so for the stability of the office and to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations. She also acknowledged her days were likely numbered and that ongoing cases could be threatened if a criminal defendant challenged the legality of her holding the post.

That’s because the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, whose decisions cover Delaware, ruled Dec. 1 that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had illegally named former Trump personal attorney Alina Habba as New Jersey’s acting U.S. attorney after her 120-day interim term ended — the same process used with Murray.

Two criminal defendants in New Jersey had lawsuits challenging Habba’s right to hold the job there.

Habba stepped down last week and joined Bondi’s staff in Washington, D.C.

Murray will remain in the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, as Bondi has named her an executive assistant U.S. attorney.

“It’s very very important to me to continue the work of that office,” Murray said, specifying her initiative targeting gun crimes in Sussex County, where she lives.

Bondi’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the shakeup in the Delaware office.

Wallace is a native Delawarean who attended the University of Virginia and Yale Law School. He previously clerked for federal judges, worked in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and was a partner at a law firm in Washington, D.C. He joined the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2023.

Wallace told WHYY News he’s grateful for the opportunity and lauded Murray for vacating the post. Murray had named him her first assistant soon after taking the job in July.

“It’s a testament to Delaware that we were able to find a solution that is going to best serve the state. And that’s really in large part a credit to Julie,” Wallace said.

“When she saw the 3rd Circuit decision, she was really thinking about the office first and about how to protect our cases from the significant litigation risk that that decision created. In the best tradition of the cooperative spirit of Delaware, [her decision] saved what would potentially be some pretty significant headaches in the office.“

Murray agreed with Wallace’s assessment.

“I was concerned that there was not a legal path that could justify my staying as the acting U.S. attorney and that it would certainly open up legal challenges,” Murray said.

Murray said the office is in excellent hands with fellow Republican Wallace, whose father, Paul Wallace, is a Delaware Superior Court judge.

“Ben is terrific. I have not one negative thing that I could possibly say about Ben,” Murray said. “I obviously think the world of him.”

Sens. Coons, Blunt Rochester deemed Murray unqualified

Murray also acknowledged that she could not have obtained the post by the process outlined in the U.S. Constitution, in which a president makes a formal nomination and U.S. Senate confirmation is required.

That’s because part of that process is a longstanding tradition that requires the nominee to receive so-called “blue slip” endorsements by their state’s two U.S. senators.

Delaware’s two U.S. senators, Chris Coons and Lisa Blunt Rochester, are Democrats who interviewed Murray for the post. Coons said the duo decided Murray, who has done criminal defense work, didn’t have the prosecutorial experience to qualify as the state’s chief federal law enforcement official.

Although Murray accused the senators of playing politics with her unconventional appointment, Coons and Blunt Rochester disagreed.

“Any suggestion of political partiality throughout this process is misleading and blatantly false, said Taj Magruder, a spokesman for Blunt Rochester.

Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that considers nominees before they are considered by the full Senate, told WHYY News last month that Murray’s acting status was “probably illegal.”

After Colm Connolly, Delaware’s chief federal judge, issued the order naming Wallace, Coons said he’s pleased the judges exercised their lawful “power to appoint a U.S. attorney in the absence of a presidential nomination.”

Coons said he’s also relieved that the transition occurred without the rancor seen in New Jersey and the Eastern District of Virginia.

In Virginia, former Trump insurance lawyer Lindsay Halligan was ruled ineligible by a federal judge in her district because Bondi named her interim boss after the 120-day period to do so under federal law had expired.

Perhaps more importantly, the indictments Halligan obtained days after taking office against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Latisha James were dismissed. Bondi has pledged to appeal but has not yet done so.

Though Habba resigned after the adverse ruling in New Jersey, Halligan remains in her post in Virginia.

Other end-around maneuvers by Trump and Bondi have been deemed unlawful in Nevada, New Mexico and California, but those three remain under appeal.

“I’m just glad that we’ve avoided that level of drama here and that in Ben Wallace, we’ve got a court-appointed U.S. attorney who can keep the office moving forward in a constructive way,” Coons said.

Besides handling major crimes, “the district of Delaware handles some of our country’s most important patent litigation, corporate litigation, bankruptcy litigation,” Coons said.

“So it’s important for Delawareans and our constituents that we have a well-managed, disciplined, appropriate respect for the rule of law in how the federal courts here are handled and how the U.S. attorney’s office is led. And I’m relieved that we seem to have a path forward here that is appropriate.”

Law prof says Judge Connolly ‘navigated it as best he could’

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who tracks appointments of U.S. attorneys and federal judges, praised Connolly, a Republican and former U.S. attorney for Delaware, for his deft handling of the potentially volatile situation.

“He navigated it as best he could. He didn’t provoke a confrontation,” Tobias said of Connolly, who Trump appointed as a judge during his first presidential term, with the Senate’s approval. “And he deserves a lot of credit for keeping the courts moving.”

Prior to Friday’s order, Connolly had publicly sought applications for the post, writing that “the court would only appoint a person the court deems qualified for the position.”

That clearly wasn’t Murray. In his previous order in November, Connolly wrote that judges had decided not to name anyone to the post after Murray’s interim status expired Nov. 12.

That prompted Bondi to name her “acting” U.S. attorney and led U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, himself a former Trump personal attorney, to publicly rebuke Connolly on social media.

Connolly did not take the bait, however.

And last week, without any fanfare, he issued this one-page order naming Wallace.

Citing federal law, Connolly’s order said that if “the president has not nominated a person to be considered by the Senate” to the post, the court “may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.”

Connolly would not comment for this article.

Murray would not comment on being passed over by Connolly, but her resignation announcement on Facebook accused Coons and Blunt Rochester of rejecting her “for political reasons, not performance reasons.”

Despite Murray’s obvious frustration with the Democratic U.S. senators in her state, Tobias credited Murray for stepping down and not creating a crisis in the critical federal law enforcement agency.

“She could have done what Habba did and what Halligan’s still doing, which turns out to be chaotic and disruptive,’’ Tobias said. “She honored the 3rd Circuit’s ruling, saying, ‘I have to obey the law when the judges make a pronouncement like that.’”

While federal law gives the district’s judges the power to put someone in a vacant post indefinitely, Trump can still nominate someone for consideration by the Senate.

Wallace, who thanked Trump, Bondi and the Delaware judges who made the move, said any decision about his future lies with the president.

“I am perfectly content doing the job for as long as I can,’’ Wallace said. “If  the president elects to nominate me, be honored. But I’m good, doing the job as is.”