A former King County judge is taking the Trump administration to court over how quickly he was pushed out of a top federal law enforcement job. Roger Rogoff has filed a lawsuit in federal district court challenging his abrupt firing last week, a case that puts a spotlight on how the role of US attorney is filled in Washington state.
Rogoff had been selected by a group of judges to hold the position of US attorney for the Western District of Washington. Under that process, a panel of judges chose him to step into the role, which oversees federal prosecutions across the western part of the state.
His time in the position, however, was extraordinarily brief. According to the account of events, Rogoff was fired just about an hour later by the president. The speed of the removal is now at the heart of the legal fight he has launched.
The lawsuit names President Donald Trump and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. By naming both the president and the nation's top law enforcement official, Rogoff is directly challenging the decision at the highest levels of the administration that carried out his firing.
In the suit, Rogoff alleges that the firing was illegal. He argues that he must be allowed to remain seated in the role until the president formally nominates a permanent replacement, rather than being removed almost immediately after the judges selected him.
The administration sees the matter very differently. Its position is that a US attorney can be fired by the president, framing the removal as within the president's authority. In that view, the judges who chose Rogoff stepped outside the usual practice of consulting with the administration to ensure the selected US attorney is suited to serve within it.
The dispute now turns on how those competing claims are resolved in court. At its core, the case tests the boundary between the judges' role in selecting a US attorney for the district and the president's power to remove one, leaving the leadership of the office in question until the legal challenge plays out.