On July 16, 2026, President Trump fired Roger Rogoff, the newly sworn U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, just 54 minutes after Rogoff took the oath of office. The dismissal stunned the federal judiciary and set off a constitutional clash over whether a president can override a federal court’s appointment of a prosecutor without Senate confirmation.
Rogoff was still waiting in the building lobby when he received an email terminating his employment, making the removal one of the fastest firing cycles in federal prosecutorial history. What made this firing extraordinary was not just its speed, but its origin: Rogoff had been appointed by a panel of 17 active and former federal judges in the Western District of Washington—not by the White House or the Senate. The judges acted under a federal statute that allows courts to fill prosecutorial vacancies when the executive branch leaves positions unfilled beyond a 120-day statutory limit. Trump’s immediate removal of a judicially appointed prosecutor raised sharp questions about whether a president can fire an officer appointed under a different constitutional process.
Table of Contents
- How a Federal Judge Panel Appointed Seattle’s Top Prosecutor
- The Federal Statute at the Center of the Dispute
- Who Roger Rogoff Is and Why the Judges Chose Him
- The Predecessor’s Unusual Tenure and the Statutory Workaround
- Rogoff’s Legal Challenge to His Removal
- The Surprise and Its Implications for Prosecutorial Independence
- The Constitutional Separation of Powers Question
How a Federal Judge Panel Appointed Seattle’s Top Prosecutor
The appointment of Roger Rogoff came after months of tension between the federal judiciary and the trump Justice Department over who would serve as U.S. Attorney in Seattle. In October 2025, the administration had appointed Charles Neil Floyd as an interim U.S. Attorney. However, Floyd’s appointment was supposed to expire after 120 days under federal law. Rather than nominate and seek Senate confirmation for a permanent replacement—a process that typically takes months or years—the Justice Department downgraded Floyd to “First Assistant U.S.
Attorney” in January 2026, a workaround that kept him in charge while technically circumventing the 120-day limit. The chief federal judge in the Western District of Washington publicly announced in January 2026 that the district court intended to exercise its statutory authority under 28 U.S.C. § 546 to appoint a new U.S. Attorney. This statute was designed precisely for situations where a vacancy persists beyond the appointment deadline. On July 16, 2026, the 17-judge panel acted, unanimously selecting Rogoff and having him sworn in before 8 a.m. The panel did not consult with the White House, citing the statute’s explicit allowance for judicial appointment when the executive delays acting.
The Federal Statute at the Center of the Dispute
The law governing this situation—28 U.S.C. § 546—was enacted by Congress to prevent indefinite vacancies in federal prosecutorial positions. Under normal circumstances, U.S. Attorneys are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, a process that can take six months to two years. Congress recognized that extended vacancies created problems: no clear chain of authority, disrupted prosecutions, and potential abuse. The statute allows the chief judge of a district court to appoint a temporary U.S.
Attorney if a vacancy exists for more than 120 days after an interim appointment expires. The statute’s text and legislative history do not explicitly address whether a president can fire a judicially appointed U.S. Attorney. This gap is significant because all previous federal prosecutorial appointments involved either Senate-confirmed officials or temporary appointees who assumed office while a permanent appointment was pending. No modern precedent exists for a federal court appointing a U.S. Attorney and the president immediately attempting to remove them. The ambiguity left room for the Trump administration to argue that presidential removal power supersedes judicial appointment authority—a claim that Rogoff’s legal team has now challenged in court.
Who Roger Rogoff Is and Why the Judges Chose Him
Roger Rogoff brought extensive federal prosecutorial experience to the position. He spent 14 years as a King County prosecutor in Washington state, handling cases ranging from homicides to white-collar crimes. He then served six years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Seattle office, prosecuting federal cases. After leaving that role, Rogoff was appointed by Governor Jay Inslee in 2013 to serve as a King County Superior Court judge, a position he held for seven years.
In 2022, Governor Inslee selected Rogoff as the first director of Washington’s newly created Office of Independent Investigations, an agency tasked with investigating police use of deadly force—a politically sensitive position requiring someone with prosecutorial experience and credibility with both law enforcement and civil rights advocates. Rogoff resigned from the OII role in early 2026 and joined a Seattle law firm before the judges appointed him U.S. Attorney. His background made him a natural choice for the judicial panel: he had deep experience in both state and federal prosecution, courtroom credibility built over decades, and no prior connection to the Trump administration. The judges’ unanimous selection suggested they viewed him as a qualified, experienced prosecutor who could lead the office without partisan baggage. That very independence—the lack of any Trump connection—may have been precisely what triggered the administration’s decision to fire him.
The Predecessor’s Unusual Tenure and the Statutory Workaround
Charles Neil Floyd, Rogoff’s predecessor, was appointed as interim U.S. Attorney on October 6, 2025. Under the statute, his appointment should have expired around January 6, 2026—120 days later. At that point, the administration had two options: nominate a permanent replacement for Senate confirmation or allow the court to appoint a temporary prosecutor under 28 U.S.C. § 546.
Instead, the Justice Department chose a third path not explicitly contemplated by the statute: downgrading Floyd to “First Assistant U.S. Attorney,” a position with no statutory term limit. This workaround troubled the federal judges because it appeared designed to prevent the triggering of the judicial appointment mechanism. The chief judge’s January 2026 announcement signaled that the court viewed the downgrade as an evasion of the statute and intended to assert its appointment authority anyway. The judges were not claiming the power to remove Floyd; rather, they were claiming the power to appoint someone to fill what they characterized as a true vacancy—one that had existed beyond the 120-day window without proper executive action or Senate confirmation. The statute’s design suggested that courts were meant to serve as a backstop when the executive branch either negligently or deliberately left positions unfilled.
Rogoff’s Legal Challenge to His Removal
On July 21, 2026—five days after his firing—Rogoff filed suit against the Trump administration. His lawsuit asserted two primary claims: first, that Trump’s removal of a judicially appointed prosecutor violated the plain text of 28 U.S.C. § 546, which contemplates that appointed U.S. Attorneys can serve their terms; and second, that the removal violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, which allocates appointment power among the president, Senate, and courts but does not explicitly authorize a president to remove an officer appointed through a different constitutional process.
The Trump Justice Department’s response, articulated by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in public statements, was direct: district court judges may appoint temporary U.S. Attorneys under the statute, but once appointed, such officers remain executive branch employees subject to the president’s removal authority. Blanche stated that federal judges had “abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration” and that the president retains plenary power to remove his own executive branch appointees. This argument relies on longstanding Supreme Court precedent recognizing broad presidential removal power over executive officers, but it sidesteps the question of whether that power extends to an officer appointed through a constitutionally distinct appointment process—one where the Senate played no confirmatory role but the courts did.
The Surprise and Its Implications for Prosecutorial Independence
What made the firing a “surprise move” was not merely its speed but its timing and the signal it sent. Federal prosecutors are the government’s chief law enforcement officers in their districts, responsible for investigating and trying cases involving everything from terrorism to white-collar fraud to civil rights violations. The expectation, embedded in both law and practice, is that once a U.S. Attorney is installed—regardless of the appointment mechanism—they serve a multi-year term unless fired for cause, gross misconduct, or a change in administration with strong policy reasons.
Rogoff’s 54-minute tenure communicated a starkly different message: that the Trump administration would not tolerate even a judicially appointed prosecutor independent of its control. No policy rationale was articulated for the firing. Blanche’s public statements focused on the procedural point that judges should not have appointed anyone without White House consultation, not on any deficiency in Rogoff’s qualifications or any imminent threat he posed to the administration’s legal agenda. This raised concerns among federal judges and legal observers that the removal targeted Rogoff’s independent status itself—that his appointment by judges, without administration input, was the reason for his removal.
The Constitutional Separation of Powers Question
The firing crystallizes a constitutional tension that has grown more acute in recent years: the extent to which courts can exercise functions traditionally associated with executive power, and whether presidential removal authority can override court-based appointments. The Appointments Clause gives Congress power to vest appointment of certain officers in the courts of law. Congress did exactly that in 28 U.S.C. § 546, allowing district judges to appoint U.S. Attorneys when statutory conditions are met.
The Supreme Court has never directly ruled on whether a president can fire a prosecutor appointed by courts under a statute. The leading precedent on removal power, Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010), addressed a different scenario: whether the president could remove members of an executive agency board. The Court held that the president has broad removal power over executive officers but did not address what happens when Congress has explicitly vested appointment power in a non-executive body. Rogoff’s lawsuit may force the courts to clarify whether the appointment power and removal power must be exercised through the same constitutional process, or whether presidential removal authority can overcome a congressionally authorized judicial appointment. The stakes extend beyond Seattle’s federal prosecution office to questions about the independence of any officer appointed through a court-based appointment mechanism Congress has created.