A federal judge restored Roger Rogoff as the top federal prosecutor in Seattle on Thursday, ruling that President Donald Trump could not fire a U.S. attorney whom district judges had appointed less than an hour earlier. U.S.
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OVERRULED
Three judges tell the administration no in two weeks: reinstate him, hand over the memo, let them in.
As it ran on the front
The filing under review this week is not a conspiracy, it is Exhibit A in triplicate. Three separate federal courts, three separate agencies, one habit: show the paperwork, or don't, and let a judge decide whether you meant it.
Start with the clock. Roger Rogoff was sworn in as the U.S. attorney for Western Washington; less than an hour later, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that President Trump had fired him. All together now — read the line back: less than an hour. That is not a personnel decision, that is a stopwatch. U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian, an Obama appointee, read the same line Thursday and ordered Rogoff reinstated, calling the firing exactly what the docket shows it to be: faster than the ink dried.…
…(cont) The government offered three reasons the memo should stay secret. Engelmayer's opinion — sixty-six pages, his own, not theirs — rejected two of the three. The memo comes out. The document that tells the public who signed off on killing people on boats will now be read by people who are not currently employed by the Pentagon, which was apparently the objection.
And before both of those, on September 18, the White House banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the building over coverage it did not like. Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, ordered the credentials restored on September 24, finding the outlets would likely win. The networks were back in court September 29 asking him to keep the restraining order in place. That filing is the receipt; what the docket does with it next is the next filing.
Lay the three dockets side by side and the pattern is not conspiracy, it is just the same institution asking the same question three times in two weeks, whether it has to show its own work. No.
“They fired a federal prosecutor before his chair got warm, then stood up in court arguing the Pentagon's own boat-strike memo should stay locked in a drawer — same stretch of two weeks, same instinct: nobody outside the room gets to check the math. That's not law enforcement, that's a landlord changing the locks between inspections. When the people deciding who gets prosecuted and who gets killed don't have to show their work, you're not a citizen, you're a tenant.”
“Look, the President has the authority to remove U.S. attorneys, that's Article Two, plain as day — okay, maybe not when the guy's fired an hour after he's sworn in, I'll grant that one's a little awkward. And the memo, that's just protecting sensitive deliberations about the boat strikes, which, fine, the judge wrote sixty-six pages rejecting two of our three arguments, but that doesn't mean the process was broken. Did I just call a sixty-six-page opinion against us "not broken"? That's not usually how we play this.”
The receipts
A federal judge has ordered a U.S. attorney from Western Washington who was fired by President Donald Trump in July to immediately be reinstated to the position.
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled the Trump administration must turn over a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo that legally authorizes the Pentagon’s lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected two of the administration’s three arguments to keep the document secret in a 66-page opinion…
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in July that President Trump had fired Roger Rogoff as the U.S. attorney in Seattle, less than an hour after he was sworn into the post.
· Trump-Appointed Judge Orders President to Restore White House Access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· Fourth Circuit worried Trump’s US attorney appointments unlawfully cut out Senate from the morgue, 15 Sep 2026
· Judge orders White House to restore media access temporarily for blocked outlets from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· CNN, MS Now, and Politico ask judge to extend order pausing Trump’s ban from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.