Trump fires Seattle prosecutor minutes after judges appoint him

President Donald Trump fired Roger Rogoff minutes after federal judges in Seattle selected him to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.

Rogoff brought a long local résumé to the post. Jay Inslee appointed him to the King County Superior Court in 2013, he began hearing cases on January 6, 2014, and later became the first director of Washington’s Office of Independent Investigations, the state agency created to investigate police use-of-force incidents. Federal judges chose him to fill a vacancy after the administration did not secure a confirmed successor.

The legal fight centers on 28 U.S.C. § 546, the statute that lets the attorney general appoint an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days and then allows the district court to appoint one until the vacancy is filled. A January 2026 court order relied on that authority after the 120-day period for Charles Neil Floyd expired without Senate confirmation of a permanent nominee.

Floyd, whom Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed interim U.S. attorney on September 16, 2025, was sworn in that day. He previously worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, handling violent crime, white-collar crime, health care fraud, mail and wire fraud, bank embezzlement, child exploitation, immigration violations and identity theft. He later served as an immigration judge and was recalled to Washington, D.C., for immigration-enforcement work.

Chief federal judge David G. Estudillo had already announced that the court intended to exercise its appointment power.