President Donald Trump and the crew of cynical sycophants surrounding him can seem pretty unpredictable until you start spotting the patterns.

On matters of law and order, expect the inversion of what Trump claims to be true. If he says he's ending the "weaponization" of the Department of Justice, you better believe he'll use that legal power like a blunt instrument to pound away at his perceived enemies, no matter what the law allows, no matter how inept his agents are.

That's why the kerfuffle about Trump's pick for U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba, feels so predictable.

Habba was widely seen as inexperienced when she represented Trump in a 2024 New York defamation case, which he lost. But she played the part of a lawyer in a passable way while lavishing Trump with loyalty on Fox News so, of course, he made her the top prosecutor for the entire state of New Jersey.

And, of course, she made a mess of it, politicizing the office from the get-go in a set of fits-and-starts prosecutions

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