Last month, Trump administration officials criticized the federal judges who ordered the removal of Alina Haba from her position as New Jersey’s top prosecutor. They reiterated this assertion Thursday when U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled Haba’s reappointment “unlawful.”
“We will protect her position against vigorous judicial attacks,” Attorney General Pamela Bondy said on social media, announcing her intention to appeal.
Haba spoke out, promising on Fox News: “We will not fall for crooked judges. We will not fall for those who try to play politics when they should simply be doing their job and respecting the president.”
However, Brann does not entirely agree with the narrative Trump allies are criticizing, characterizing Haba’s appointment as politically motivated, aimed at removing her from her position as New Jersey’s top prosecutor.
A lifelong Republican, he is a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative organization, and the National Rifle Association. Although former President Barack Obama nominated him to the federal bench in 2012, his appointment was part of a bipartisan agreement, common in states with bipartisan senators. (Brann, whose court is located in Williamsport, in north-central Pennsylvania, was chosen to hear the HAPA case due to a venue change.)
During his confirmation hearing, then-Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein described him as “perhaps the most Republican judicial nominee to come out of the Obama administration.” Pat Toomey, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2023, described him as “a lifelong conservative Republican, whom I know to be a fair and impartial judge.”
Brann himself emphasized to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the most important quality for a judge is “complete impartiality in applying the law to the facts presented in court.”
Brann stated, “A United States district judge must be fair, impartial, friendly, punctual, calm, and respectful.” I believe I have the personality to serve effectively as a federal district judge. He acknowledged holding “fundamentally conservative views” but told senators that politics had no place on his bench—and should not, in order to preserve public confidence in the courts.
Bran stated, “I think I have pretty strong political views on various issues. My job is to keep them out, and I think that’s the hardest thing for a judge, frankly, to keep my personal views out of the way, because, frankly, how much confidence will the public have in the end if you do that?” They’ll think that this person really shouldn’t be a judge, that they don’t have the character or the wisdom to be one.”
He added, “I hope to ultimately bring those qualities to the bench, and I assure you, that’s what I’m striving for.”
After his confirmation in December 2012, he was appointed a judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in January 2013, becoming chief judge of that district in 2021. When he took office, Williamsport had been without a full-time federal judge for several years, according to WNEP-TV.
Born in Elmira, New York, Brann previously practiced law for two decades in Bradford County, a rural and mountainous region bordering New York State.
“I’m a country lawyer,” Brann told the television station.
Brann has previously been a target of Trump opponents.
In November 2020, he dismissed a lawsuit in which the Trump campaign was attempting to delay the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results. This decision briefly made him a media darling among progressives, with Philadelphia magazine enthusiastically reporting that Brann had “totally foiled” Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.
During oral arguments in Hapa’s case last week, Brann appeared eager to consider challenging Hapa’s authority, repeatedly highlighting the “interesting” points raised by the case over four hours. He also jokingly suggested that he had fully anticipated the outcry over his ruling on Thursday.
“I have a feeling my ruling is not going to please everyone,” he said.