Judge Reinstates Washington State US Attorney Fired by Trump
Left 33%
Center 33%
Right 33%
1 left · 1 center · 1 right
What happened
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian ordered Roger Rogoff immediately reinstated as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington after President Donald Trump fired him in July. District judges had appointed Rogoff on July 15 under a federal vacancy statute that lets courts name a U.S. attorney once an attorney general’s 120-day interim appointment expires, until the Senate confirms a replacement; Trump emailed a firing roughly an hour after Rogoff took the oath of office. Ruling from the bench on a preliminary injunction, Bastian held that the president cannot unilaterally fire a court-appointed U.S. attorney, declared Rogoff the “rightful holder of that office” since July 15, and said first assistant Charles Neil Floyd—whom Trump last week directed to perform the office’s duties—“is not the United States attorney.” The order bars the administration from putting the firing into effect, denying Rogoff the office’s resources, or treating anyone else as U.S. attorney until a Senate-confirmed replacement is in place; Trump nominated Simon Peter Serrano for the post last month. The Justice Department said it disagrees with the decision, plans to appeal, and will seek a stay.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 3 articles
3 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
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- How it developed
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- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning coverage omits that other courts have already thrown out this way of installing U.S. attorneys, so a reader sees a one-off Seattle personnel order rather than a repeating statutory fight. Left-leaning coverage is simply more complete on that point: it reports similar cases around the country and that judges appointed by both parties found the tactic violates the appointment statute. The Washington Examiner piece never mentions those other cases or the Senate confirmation problem at all.
Left-leaning coverage leads with the administration's "battle with the judiciary." Right-leaning coverage instead flags that Judge Stanley Bastian is an Obama appointee, a detail ABC News never includes.
Who has been running the Seattle office since the July firing, and does Thursday's order immediately transfer real prosecutorial authority to Rogoff?
Bottom line
If you read only the Washington Examiner, this is one judge putting a Seattle prosecutor back. ABC News is the outlet that reports judges from both parties have already ruled the same appointment tactic illegal.
The receipts — 4 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Similar cases around the country in which judges appointed by both parties ruled that indefinitely installing U.S. attorneys violates the appointment statute
- The Justice Department said it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal and seek a stay
- The court ordered the Trump administration not to obstruct Rogoff's access to the resources of the U.S. attorney's office
- Rogoff was fired through an email roughly an hour after federal judges appointed him
The Left View
ABC News frames the ruling as “the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with the judiciary over DOJ efforts to install U.S. attorneys around the country without Senate confirmation.” It reports that Rogoff sued citing similar cases in which the administration “had unsuccessfully sought to install attorneys and extend their service indefinitely,” which “judges appointed by both parties have ruled clearly violates the appointment statute.” The coverage emphasizes that the injunction is also “barring the Justice Department from again attempting to replace him.”
The Right View
The Washington Examiner frames the outcome as a federal judge restoring a Seattle prosecutor “whom district judges had appointed less than an hour earlier,” and identifies Bastian as “an appointee of former President Barack Obama.” Its account focuses on the court ordering the Trump administration not to obstruct Rogoff’s access to the resources of the U.S. attorney’s office.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is statutory and structural: allowing the president to fire a district-court-appointed U.S. attorney would, in Rogoff’s words, “permit the Executive Branch to evade the Senate’s advice-and-consent role indefinitely,” a view ABC News notes “judges appointed by both parties” have applied to related appointment fights, and which Bastian tied to preserving “the incentive to nominate a candidate that can be confirmed by the Senate.” The right-leaning account’s strongest available point is that an Obama-appointed judge blocked the president from removing a prosecutor the courts themselves had installed minutes earlier, casting the dispute as judicial constraint of presidential control over a U.S. attorney’s office. The central unresolved tension is whether a vacancy-statute court appointment insulates that U.S. attorney from presidential removal until Senate confirmation—a question now headed to appeal.
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