president Trump has named his former personal lawyer Alina habba as interim us attorney for New Jersey and she's vound to use the position as a top federal prosecutor to shake things up even more than his billionaire adviser Elon Musk but habba has no prosecutorial experience and critics say it's another example of the president's tight grip over the justice department during his second term shortly after being sworn into the post habba wasted no time making false claims about rampant crime in the state leading to more questions about whether she's fit for the office senior political correspondent David Cruz reports you may first have heard of Alina habba from her work as personal attorney to president Trump during his civil trials for assault and Corruption all that advocacy for Trump has had its benefits as habba goes from a modest civil law practice to us attorney for the District of New Jersey in the space of a year and she's already making waves in a very trumpian way tossing insults at New Jersey cities their leaders and immigrant communities and she's only been on a job since Friday if you look at what happened in crime what's going on in New York what's going on in Camden this has been a neglected state it is one of the most populated states for its size and it needs to stop it wasn't exactly clear who or what kind of crime Hava was referring to but in general Republicans have been pushing The Narrative of crimer ridden big cities to some electoral success under the last Administration violent crime in New Jersey however Rose more than 60% and under the last Administration violent crime throughout the Country Rose at levels that are higher than that and unacceptable despite most evidence to the contrary Professor Daniel semenza is the research director of the gun violence research Center at ruter the reality is that in places like Newark um and certainly in cities like Camden uh crime is actually down by quite a bit uh at the beginning of this year in 2025 Camden had one of the lowest crime rates it's had in decades almost five decades um and at the beginning of this year compared to the beginning of last year um violent crime in nework was down by about 46% Ras Baraka mayor of Newark one of the cities called out by name dismissed the habac comments as textbook Maga the president trying to influence events including next year's governor's race I think she's just doing what Trump she thinks Trump wants her to do to come over here and do the Maga thing the magga twostep and like uh play politics but what she said was absolutely uninformed it was wrong uh and it is weaponization of of of of uh Federal institutions we do not have an ms3 problem in new so for her to say oh yeah in MS13 we don't have that issue in our city so I mean she just got bad Intel While most presidents defer to the senior senator from the state when it comes to naming us attorneys a president can also appoint an interim to serve for a maximum of 120 days before a confirmation is required hambu was still sounding very much like a partisan when she was interviewed for a conservative podcast before her official swear in I hope so we could turn New Jersey red I really do believe that um there's momentum right now uh president Trump's agenda is working the American people voted for it 80 million people people voted for it and I think New Jersey is absolutely close but Senator Mike Tesa whose name was briefly floated for this job as well said he thinks habba is a good choice and said she should be judged by her work going forward well certainly that's partisan and I and I think that was probably a little bit of a vestage of what was left from her being you know president Trump's personal attorney she's no longer president Trump's personal attorney she's the United States of America that she is the attorney representing the US of a in the state of New Jersey at the highest level and and hopefully that's just a vestage of of what was left over from her being president Trump's personal attorney the president hasn't said if he'll subject habba to Senate scrutiny and habba avoided the question when asked about it this week but 120 days days is plenty of time to shake up a status quo and sprinkle some chaos into State politics a job Alina habba seems eager to take on I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news [Music]