Fifty-four minutes was apparently enough time to create a constitutional showdown.
Roger Rogoff never made it through his first morning as western Washington’s new U.S. attorney before President Trump fired him.
Now Rogoff has made his next move.
He is suing to get the job back.
When WLTR reported on the firing July 15, Rogoff was still weighing his legal options. Six days later, he filed a federal complaint that could force a court to answer a question no judge has squarely decided before.
Can a president immediately remove a U.S. attorney appointed by federal judges?
Fox News Politics laid out the extraordinary timeline:
Roger Rogoff was unanimously selected by federal judges to serve as U.S. attorney in western Washington.
He was sworn in — then fired 54 minutes later.
Now he’s suing in what is believed to be the first case of its kind, setting up a major test of presidential power over… pic.twitter.com/JnQgVrLGNU
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) July 24, 2026
The fight started with a vacancy that had dragged on without a Senate-confirmed replacement.
Federal law lets the attorney general name an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days. If that clock expires while the position remains vacant, the judges of that district may appoint someone to serve until the Senate confirms a presidential nominee.
That is exactly what the judges in Seattle did.
The Western District of Washington’s signed order says all 17 active and senior judges unanimously selected Rogoff under 28 U.S.C. § 546(d).
They cited his deep local ties and long record as a prosecutor, federal prosecutor and judge. The order said he would serve until the vacancy was filled through the normal presidential nomination and Senate confirmation process.
The vacancy stretched back to the 2023 resignation of Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney Nicholas Brown. Tessa Gorman later served through an interim appointment and then a court appointment before President Trump removed her in February 2025.
The judges announced in January that they might use their statutory authority again. They formed a merit panel, solicited applications and ultimately chose Rogoff after the White House did not submit a permanent nominee to the Senate.
Rogoff took the oath at approximately 7:40 a.m. Pacific on July 15.
At approximately 8:34 a.m., the White House Presidential Personnel Office emailed him notice that he had been removed.
His tenure was over before most people had finished their first cup of coffee.
The new lawsuit, Rogoff v. Trump, was filed Tuesday in the same federal district whose judges appointed him. It names President Trump, the Executive Office of the President, the Justice Department and senior administration officials as defendants.
According to the Associated Press, Rogoff is asking the court to declare the firing unlawful and void, restore him to office and stop the administration from recognizing someone else as U.S. attorney until a Senate-confirmed successor takes over.
He also wants access to the office, personnel and resources that would come with the position. His requested injunction would require the government to recognize him while the case proceeds.
The complaint says Charles Neil Floyd remains functionally in charge as first assistant U.S. attorney even though the Senate has not confirmed him for the top job. That would create an awkward spectacle even by Washington standards.
Rogoff would be running a Justice Department office while the Justice Department’s leadership insists he was lawfully fired and does not belong there.
His argument rests on more than hurt feelings over a 54-minute résumé line.
Rogoff claims the administration’s removal theory would make the court’s appointment power meaningless. A president could refuse to nominate anyone, immediately fire every judicial appointee and leave a preferred but unconfirmed official functionally in charge for as long as desired.
His complaint argues that this would collide with the Appointments Clause, the separation of powers and the structure Congress created in 28 U.S.C. § 546.
But the administration has a blunt piece of statutory text on its side.
28 U.S.C. § 541(c) says each U.S. attorney “is subject to removal by the President.” It does not carve out an exception for a prosecutor appointed by district judges.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made that point immediately after Rogoff’s firing: judges may appoint a temporary U.S. attorney, but the president may fire one.
The Justice Department told Fox News that the district court did not coordinate with the department on its selection. DOJ called the removal “wholly within the President’s authority.”
That is the cleanest argument in the case. DOJ says the removal language makes no distinction between a presidential appointee and a prosecutor placed in office by judges.
Congress gave courts a temporary appointment role so a district would not remain without a top prosecutor. Congress also wrote that each U.S. attorney is removable by the president, and the administration argues those two rules can operate together.
Rogoff’s lawyers must persuade a judge that the second provision cannot be read so broadly that it destroys the practical force of the first. They must do that despite the executive branch’s traditional control over federal prosecution.
Fox also notes that Rogoff is no stranger to the work. He spent roughly two decades as a state prosecutor, six years as a federal prosecutor and later served as a King County Superior Court judge.
He went on to work for Microsoft and lead Washington’s Office of Independent Investigations. That résumé may explain why the judges trusted him, but it does not settle who had the final power to remove him.
The White House referred questions about the case to DOJ, and no court has ruled on the merits. For all the drama surrounding the 54-minute firing, the lawsuit begins with two statutes that appear to pull in opposite directions.
Rogoff explained his position in an interview shared by PBS NewsHour:
A U.S. attorney in Washington state who was fired by the Trump administration is suing the government over his dismissal.
Roger Rogoff was sworn in after a panel of judges unanimously selected him. Less than an hour later, he was fired via email.
His lawsuit highlights the… pic.twitter.com/izCR8l8itT
— PBS News (@NewsHour) July 23, 2026
The case matters well beyond Seattle.
The Trump administration has removed other court-appointed U.S. attorneys during disputes over who may lead federal prosecutors’ offices. Those ousted prosecutors did not take their claims to court.
Rogoff did.
That makes his lawsuit the first direct test of a strategy the administration has used in several districts where temporary appointments expired without a Senate-confirmed replacement.
A ruling for Rogoff could put real limits on the president’s ability to clear out judicial appointees. A ruling for the administration could confirm that the courts’ power to fill the vacancy does not protect their chosen prosecutor from immediate removal.
There is also a practical question beneath the constitutional one.
U.S. attorneys wield enormous power. They decide which federal cases to pursue, what charges to bring and how the Justice Department’s priorities will be enforced across an entire district.
The Constitution normally gives the president the nomination, the Senate the confirmation and the executive branch the responsibility for what those prosecutors do.
Congress added the judicial appointment mechanism so a district would not remain leaderless when that process stalls.
Rogoff’s case asks what happens when those two systems collide head-on.
For now, the administration’s choice remains in control of the Seattle office, Rogoff remains outside it and no court has ruled that the firing was illegal.
But the legal threat that looked hypothetical on July 15 is hypothetical no longer.
President Trump ended Rogoff’s tenure in 54 minutes.
Undoing it could take years.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
What are your thoughts?
