Judges Appoint Kinsella U.S. Attorney, DOJ Fires Him to Reinstate Sarcone

Federal judges in upstate New York appointed veteran prosecutor Donald T. Kinsella as interim U.S. attorney on Wednesday — only for the Justice Department and White House to move within hours to fire him and reinstall a Trump-aligned prosecutor whose appointment a judge had already ruled unlawful cbsnews +1. The rare clash, playing out in the Northern District of New York, marked the latest escalation in a national fight over who controls powerful U.S. attorney posts when Senate-confirmed leaders are absent cbsnews +1.

Kinsella, 79, a former criminal chief in the office, was sworn in virtually on Feb. 11 by Chief Judge Brenda K. Sannes after the district’s Board of Judges voted to make him interim U.S. attorney amid ongoing litigation over Trump appointee John A. Sarcone III cbsnews +1. By that night, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on X: “You are fired, Donald Kinsella. Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution,” underscoring the administration’s view that the court had overstepped reuters +1. Kinsella was notified of his removal by email from a White House personnel official, according to people familiar with the matter jpost.

How a Judicial Appointment Triggered a Constitutional Standoff

The immediate trigger was a months‑long dispute over Sarcone, whom Attorney General Pamela Bondi installed as U.S. attorney for the Northern District in March 2025 using temporary appointment powers after the Senate did not confirm a nominee aa. In July 2025, the district’s judges declined to appoint Sarcone when his interim term expired, but DOJ kept him effectively in charge through internal designations such as “first assistant” and “special attorney” jpost +1. On Jan. 8, 2026, U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield ruled that Sarcone “is not lawfully serving as Acting U.S. Attorney,” quashed subpoenas he issued targeting New York Attorney General Letitia James, and barred him from overseeing those investigations msn +1.

With Sarcone’s authority under a cloud and DOJ appealing Schofield’s decision, the Board of Judges exercised a statutory power that allows courts to appoint an interim U.S. attorney when a vacancy arises jpost +1. Their choice of Kinsella — a career prosecutor who served in the office from 1989 to 2002 — was widely seen as an attempt to stabilize leadership and insulate the office from the political fight over Sarcone and probes into James cbsnews +1. The administration’s rapid move to oust Kinsella and reaffirm executive control signaled that it did not accept the judges’ reading of either the vacancy or their authority to fill it reuters +1.

Part of a Wider Battle Over Trump-Era U.S. Attorney Picks

The Northern District confrontation fit a broader pattern in which federal judges have ruled that at least five Trump-era interim or acting U.S. attorneys were serving unlawfully after DOJ relied on unusual appointment workarounds bloomberglaw +1. In New Jersey and Virginia, courts disqualified Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan, respectively, after Bondi’s Justice Department tried to extend their tenures through internal titles once statutory terms expired, leading to quashed indictments in high-profile cases involving former FBI Director James Comey and New York AG James democracydocket +1. Critics, including some former DOJ officials, have argued that these tactics allow the administration to sidestep Senate advice-and-consent and keep political loyalists in charge of sensitive investigations bloomberglaw +1.

The stakes in Albany were heightened because Sarcone’s office had issued subpoenas seeking records about James’ civil fraud cases against Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, prompting accusations from New York officials that federal prosecutors were weaponizing the Justice Department msn +1. Schofield’s ruling that Sarcone lacked lawful authority to issue those subpoenas, and DOJ’s subsequent appeal, turned the Northern District into a test case for how far courts can go in policing executive-branch appointments — and how aggressively the Trump administration will respond when judges try to assert a check msn +1.

The Bigger Picture

The rapid firing of Kinsella within hours of his judicial appointment highlighted an unusually public separation-of-powers struggle over who gets to run the nation’s most powerful local prosecutorial offices — a struggle that now directly affects ongoing investigations into Trump critics and allies alike cbsnews +1. With DOJ appealing rulings that have invalidated multiple interim appointments, and judges in several districts signaling skepticism of Bondi’s workarounds, the Second Circuit’s eventual decision in the Sarcone case could reshape how administrations of either party fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation law +1. In the meantime, repeated leadership upheavals risk undermining morale inside U.S. attorney offices and eroding public confidence that federal prosecutions are being overseen by officials whose authority — and independence — are beyond legal dispute cbs6albany +1.