President Donald Trump on Wednesday swiftly fired the newly sworn-in U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, adding to the growing list of top federal prosecutors he has removed since the start of his second term.
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Former King County Superior Court judge and federal prosecutor Roger Rogoff was sworn in as the new U.S. attorney at 7:40 a.m. on Wednesday by federal judges who selected him for the role. He told KOMO News, a local news station, that he subsequently received an email from a Trump staffer within the hour informing him that he had been fired.
“It basically said, ‘I’m informing you that pursuant to his authority, President Trump is hereby removing you from the office of the United States attorney,’” Rogoff said.
Rogoff said he anticipated being removed, given that the Trump administration had not responded to his team’s efforts to discuss his appointment.
After sitting Wednesday for his Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to become U.S. attorney general, Todd Blanche confirmed on X that Rogoff had been “fired by the President.”
“District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them,” wrote Blanche, who is serving as the acting attorney general and was previously a defense attorney for Trump. Western District of Washington “judges abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration so that the selected U.S. Attorney is qualified to serve in the administration.”
The Western District’s federal judges selected Rogoff after they sought to find a replacement for Charles Neil Floyd in January.
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Floyd, a former immigration judge, was appointed to the U.S. attorney role by Trump in the fall in an interim capacity. At the immigration court where Floyd previously served, judges have for years denied bond hearings to anyone who crossed the border illegally — a position adopted by the Trump administration.
Trump declined to formally nominate Floyd, a former immigration judge, for the U.S. attorney role this year, which allowed the federal judges to select a U.S. attorney themselves.
Rogoff’s termination is expected to spark a legal battle over federal law, which states that federal judges can appoint a U.S. attorney when the position remains vacant and a nominee has not been formally selected by the president.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) said in a statement that Rogoff, whose most recent job was to lead a state office tasked with independently investigating police use of deadly force, was “eminently qualified,” adding that “he should have never been fired.”
In his first six months in office, Trump dismissed dozens of career prosecutors, turning a move generally reserved for cases of misconduct into a commonplace occurrence. Trump has also sought to terminate other court-appointed U.S. attorneys in parts of the country where his controversial nominees have been unable to win Senate support.
In February, for example, Donald T. Kinsella was similarly fired by the White House from his role as a U.S. attorney hours after he was appointed by federal judges in Albany.
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Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this report.
