Ninth Circuit Rules Sigal Chattah Unlawfully Serving as Nevada’s Acting US Attorney

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Monday that Sigal Chattah is unlawfully serving as Nevada’s Acting U.S. Attorney, holding that the Trump administration cannot bypass federal vacancy limits by designating her first assistant after the vacancy arose or by fully delegating the office’s powers to her.

In a unanimous opinion written by Circuit Judge Eric D. Miller, the court affirmed a district court order disqualifying Chattah from participating in or supervising three federal criminal prosecutions.The panel dismissed the defendants’ cross-appeals seeking to throw out their indictments for lack of appellate jurisdiction, leaving those charges intact.

The panel consisted of Circuit Judges Sidney R. Thomas (appointed by President Bill Clinton) and Eric D. Miller (appointed by President Donald Trump), along with District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr. (also appointed by President Trump), sitting by designation.

“These cases present the question whether the Attorney General can make someone an Acting United States Attorney—bypassing the usual requirement that a U.S. Attorney be confirmed by the Senate—by designating that person as the first assistant to an already-vacant office of U.S. Attorney. We hold that the Attorney General cannot do so,” the opinion states.

The court further held that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA) is “the exclusive means for temporarily authorizing an acting official to perform the functions and duties of any office,” and thus “prohibits a complete delegation of all of the U.S. Attorney’s powers to a single person.”Judge Miller explained that the FVRA’s automatic succession provision under 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1) applies only to a first assistant who held that position when the vacancy arose. “Section 3345(a)(1) does not apply to an official who, like Chattah, was not serving as the first assistant at the time the vacancy arose,” the opinion states. 

“The Attorney General therefore cannot rely on general delegation statutes to make Chattah the de facto U.S. Attorney.” “We hold that the Attorney General’s authority to delegate does not permit him to vest all of the functions and duties of a vacant office in a single person,” Miller wrote.

The ruling stems from a sequence of events that began when Jason Frierson resigned as U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada on January 17, 2025. First Assistant Sue Fahami automatically became Acting U.S. Attorney under the FVRA. On April 1, 2025, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Chattah as interim U.S. Attorney under 28 U.S.C. § 546 for a 120-day term set to expire July 30, 2025.

On July 28, 2025—just before that term ended—Chattah resigned as interim U.S. Attorney while stating her intent to continue leading the office. The same day, the Attorney General designated her First Assistant U.S. Attorney and appointed her a Special Attorney under 28 U.S.C. § 515, authorizing her to conduct any legal proceedings that U.S. Attorneys may handle. 

Defendants in three felony cases indicted on or after July 29, 2025, challenged her authority, leading Senior U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell (appointed by President George W. Bush and designated from Arizona) to disqualify her from supervising those prosecutions while declining to dismiss the indictments.

The government appealed the disqualification; the defendants cross-appealed the refusal to dismiss. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the disqualification and dismissed the cross-appeals.

Chattah, a Las Vegas attorney and former Republican National Committeewoman for Nevada, previously ran unsuccessfully as the Republican nominee for Nevada Attorney General in 2022 on a campaign platform of rooting out public corruption.

Nevada’s Democratic U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen strongly opposed any permanent nomination of Chattah, issuing public statements describing her in derogatory terms as an “extremist,” “deeply unfit,” an “election denier who has advocated for political violence,” and citing alleged past statements involving racism, conspiracy theories, threats of violence, and promises to target political opponents. 

Rosen explicitly pledged not to return a “blue slip” if Chattah were nominated to a permanent role. The blue-slip tradition is a longstanding but informal Senate Judiciary Committee custom (dating to 1917 and not codified in law or the Constitution) under which home-state senators are asked for their approval of certain nominees, including U.S. Attorneys, via a blue-colored form. 

A senator’s refusal to return a positive blue slip has historically been treated as a potential veto that can delay or block consideration. The practice has drawn repeated bipartisan criticism for effectively granting individual senators outsized power to obstruct a president’s nominees on partisan or personal grounds, prompting calls—particularly from Republicans in recent years—to reform or eliminate it for certain positions. 

In Chattah’s case, the senators’ public statements made clear they would use the tradition (and any available Senate tools) to prevent confirmation. President Donald Trump nominated longtime Las Vegas attorney George Kelesis to the permanent U.S. Attorney post in February 2026, the day before oral argument in the case. 

Chattah has continued to be listed as First Assistant on the office’s website during the litigation. The California Globe reached out to Chattah for comment, but she declined to issue a statement.