The same-day appointment and firing exposes a larger fight over who controls powerful federal prosecutor posts when Senate-confirmed nominees are not in place.
The Trump administration fired Seattle’s newly appointed U.S. attorney, Roger Rogoff, within minutes of his appointment on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, less than an hour after he was unanimously appointed by federal judges in the Western District of Washington. President Donald Trump’s move removed the top federal prosecutor for western Washington state almost as soon as he was sworn in.
He had been unanimously appointed by federal judges, and the firing underscores tension between the president and the courts over temporary U.S. Attorney’s Office leadership. The Trump admin fires episode now centers on the U.S. Department of Justice’s push to keep its preferred prosecutors in place while Senate-confirmed choices are absent.
A firing almost as fast as the oath
According to the Associated Press, Rogoff, a former federal prosecutor and state court judge, was sworn in before 8 a.m. at the federal courthouse in downtown Seattle.
He then went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and asked to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, whose 120-day interim term as U.S. attorney had ended earlier this year. Rogoff told AP that while he was waiting in a lobby, he received an email from the Trump administration saying he had been removed.
Reuters reported that Rogoff was considering legal action after the firing. The New York Times also reported that the removal came less than an hour after his appointment.
The speed is the point. U.S. attorneys are not low-level staffers. They are the top federal prosecutors in their districts, shaping criminal prosecutions, civil enforcement, immigration-related cases, public corruption matters and federal priorities on the ground.
Why judges stepped in
U.S. attorneys are normally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But federal law allows temporary arrangements when a confirmed leader is not in place.
One route gives the attorney general authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney for a limited period. When that window expires without a Senate-confirmed replacement, judges in the district can appoint someone to serve.
That is what happened in Seattle. AP reported that the federal judges in the district took applications, used a bipartisan panel to review candidates and then issued a unanimous order naming Rogoff as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.
The court was not a narrow ideological bloc. AP described the appointing court as 17 active and senior judges who had been appointed by five different presidents.
The Floyd appointment dispute
The fight did not begin with Rogoff’s oath. It followed months of maneuvering around Floyd, the Trump administration’s preferred choice for the Seattle office.
Trump named Floyd, a former immigration judge, as interim U.S. attorney last October, according to AP. But the administration did not send his nomination to the Senate.
When Floyd’s interim term expired, the administration shifted his title to first assistant U.S. attorney while leaving the top post empty. AP reported that the administration has tried similar personnel moves in other federal districts.
That strategy has drawn scrutiny. In May, a federal appeals court panel expressed skepticism about whether the maneuver was legal, according to AP. That skepticism helped set the stage for the judges in Seattle to act.
The administration’s case
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the removal in a social media post Wednesday.
“District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them,” Blanche wrote, according to AP. He also accused the judges who appointed Rogoff of abandoning “the time-honored process of consultation with the administration” so that the chosen U.S. attorney would be qualified to serve in that administration.
The administration’s position is blunt: even if judges can fill the vacancy, the president can remove the person they choose. That argument puts presidential control of prosecution leadership at the center of the dispute.
Supporters of that view may see the firing as a lawful assertion of executive authority over prosecutors who ultimately exercise executive power. Critics see something more troubling: a way to sidestep Senate confirmation and neutralize the judiciary’s statutory backup role.
Why Seattle matters nationally
The Seattle clash is not only a local personnel fight. It touches a recurring pressure point in American government: how far an administration can go in using acting officials, interim titles and vacancy rules to keep favored people in powerful jobs.
U.S. attorneys carry enormous discretion. They decide which cases to bring, which priorities to emphasize and how aggressively to use federal law in a district. In politically sensitive cases, the independence and legitimacy of the office matter as much as the final charging decision.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington criticized Rogoff’s removal, saying he had shown “an outstanding commitment to public service” and had been legally appointed by federal judges in the Western District of Washington, according to AP. Murray accused the administration of avoiding the advice-and-consent process.
The administration, for its part, has framed the judges’ move as an improper break from consultation with the executive branch. That disagreement leaves a basic institutional question hanging over the office: who gets the final say when the usual nomination-and-confirmation path stalls?
The legal question now
Rogoff’s possible lawsuit could test more than whether he personally returns to the job. It could clarify how much force a court appointment has if the president can immediately remove the appointee.
There are two related disputes. One is about the administration’s prior effort to keep its preferred prosecutor functioning through a different title after the interim term expired. The other is about the president’s authority to fire a court-appointed U.S. attorney moments after judges filled the vacancy.
No final court ruling described in the available reports has resolved this Seattle confrontation. That matters because both sides can point to serious structural claims: the executive branch’s control over prosecutors on one side, and Congress’s vacancy framework plus judicial appointment authority on the other.
The immediate next signs will be practical ones: whether Rogoff sues, whether the Justice Department identifies who is leading the Seattle office, and whether the White House sends a nominee to the Senate. Until then, the office’s leadership fight remains a sharp example of how a procedural vacancy can become a constitutional power struggle in less than an hour.
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