Nearly four months ago, President Donald Trump named his former personal civil defense attorney and legal spokesperson Alina Habba to serve as the interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, and though he has since nominated her to serve in that role on a permanent basis, her 120-day temporary appointment is set to expire within days.

In a doubly shocking move this week, New Jersey's mostly Democrat-appointed federal judges rejected Habba's continued interim service and ordered her replaced by her top assistant, a career federal prosecutor, only for the Justice Department to subsequently fire that named replacement, Politico reported.

The stunning turn of events has opened up a new front in the judiciary's war against the Trump administration and raises serious questions about the separation of powers between co-equal branches amid the judiciary's apparent encroachment of the executive's prerogative to make appointments.

Judges reject Trump's appointee

On Tuesday, with time winding down on Interim U.S. Attorney Habba's temporary appointment, a majority of New Jersey's federal judges exercised a seldom-used power that dates back to the Civil War and voted to replace Habba at the expiration of her brief term with her top assistant, Desiree Leigh Grace.

The move was quickly criticized as being politically motivated, given that in most of the rare prior instances in which this power has been used, judges have typically allowed the interim appointee to continue serving indefinitely until either they or their presidentially-nominated replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

In this case, however, the predominately Democratic bench of judges, spurred on by the state's two Democratic senators who vehemently opposed Habba, appeared to seek partisan retribution against Trump's interim pick over her abandoned effort to prosecute Newark's Democratic mayor, her indictment of a Democratic congresswoman -- both of whom physically interfered in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations -- and her investigation of the Democratic governor's office.

Judges' named replacement fired by DOJ

Fox News reported that, in swift response to the New Jersey judges' move to reject Habba, Attorney General Pam Bondi wasted no time in firing Assistant U.S. Attorney Grace, a career federal prosecutor who has served in that office since 2016.

In a statement, Bondi asserted that the DOJ "does not tolerate rogue judges -- especially when they threaten the President's core Article II powers."

She further stated that Habba "has been doing a great job in making NJ safe again," but noted, "Nonetheless, politically minded judges refused to allow her to continue in her position, replacing Alina with the First Assistant. Accordingly, the First Assistant United States Attorney in New Jersey has just been removed."

Likewise, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, another of President Trump's former defense attorneys, accused the Democratic New Jersey judges of "trying to force out" Habba before her interim term expired on Friday, and proclaimed, "Their rush reveals what this was always about: a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law. When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice system. Alina is President Trump’s choice to lead -- and no partisan bench can override that."

Will DOJ fight or work around the judges?

To be sure, 28 U.S.C. § 546 allows district court judges to fill a vacancy in their district if an interim appointee's 120-day term expires before they or another presidential nominee for the position is confirmed by the Senate, though as previously noted, far more often than not, judges have typically allowed the expired appointee to continue serving until they are replaced by the executive and legislative branches.

According to legal experts cited by The Hill, however, that rarely used judicial power has never truly been tested or settled by the Supreme Court, and given the Trump administration's willingness to fight to reassert executive branch powers, they are likely to push this separation of powers battle to the highest level.

Yet, there may be a workaround to this impasse that the administration could pursue to avoid lengthy litigation -- one they just used recently in New York, when that state's Northern District's judges similarly refused to extend the interim appointment of President Trump's temporary pick, John Sarcone III.

In that case, AG Bondi simply named Sarcone to be both a "special attorney" as well as the district's first assistant attorney, which in effect granted him indefinite tenure and the same powers of the U.S. Attorney, minus the title. It remains to be seen if Bondi will do the same for Habba, now that Grace has been fired, or if the administration seeks to fight the issue in the higher courts for a more permanent resolution.