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.
Page B2From§Eachthe midnight edition — 2 October 2026
THE COUNT
Same administration, same week, ordered by three judges to give back the prosecutor, the memo, and the press.
As it ran on the front
Read the docket in order and the pattern writes itself. On September 3, Judge Deborah Boardman, appointed under Biden, blocked the administration's executive order ending automatic citizenship for the children of certain noncitizens, a preliminary injunction that rejected the government's defense of the policy outright. Twelve days later, a three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit heard the administration's bid to revive two criminal prosecutions and spent the hearing doubting out loud whether the U.S. attorney who filed the charges had been lawfully appointed in the first place — no ruling yet, just a panel that could not make the government's theory hold together on the record.
By September 24, the question had moved from who gets to prosecute to who gets to watch. It was a temporary restraining order, not a final word, granted as the underlying legal fight continues.…
…(cont) Then the same argument failed twice more, on consecutive days. On Thursday, Judge Stanley Bastian, an Obama appointee, reinstated Roger Rogoff as Seattle's top federal prosecutor, ruling that the president could not remove a U.S. attorney whom the district's own judges had appointed less than an hour earlier.
Two of the three have an appointer on the record — Bastian under Obama, Kelly under Trump himself — and the third ruled the same way regardless of who made the appointment. Add September's ruling against the birth-tourism order, under a Biden appointee, and the same argument has now failed four times in four weeks.
A lawsuit put the prosecutor back in the job. A lawsuit put the memo on a judge's desk instead of in a drawer. A lawsuit put reporters back in the room where the government explains itself. None of that happens on its own; someone has to file first.
“Every time this crew tries the same trick — fire the guy keeping the receipts, bury the memo, lock out the press — a different judge, picked by a different president, tells them to put it back. That's not luck, that's a pattern, and the only reason you get to see the legal basis for a lethal boat strike is somebody filed a lawsuit to make them cough it up. Nobody up top did this out of decency. A court made them.”
“Look, these are personnel matters, routine appointment disputes — the Constitution gives the President hiring authority, full stop, and if a district court wants to install its own prosecutor that's a separation-of-powers problem for the judge, not for us. The memo? Process issue, nothing more, probably cleared up on appeal. Banning CNN from the briefing room, though — wait, did I say the administration banned CNN? That doesn't sound like something we'd do.”
Earlier in this story
- Tennessee fails to execute inmate twice, then orders itself to investigate the method for a third attempt. By Mitch · the late evening edition, 1 October 2026
- Three judges tell the administration no in two weeks: reinstate him, hand over the memo, let them in. By Mitch · the early evening edition, 1 October 2026
The receipts
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…
· 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 blocks Trump executive order banning ‘birth tourism’ from the morgue, 3 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.