{"id":9018,"date":"2026-01-08T20:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/01\/08\/yet-another-trump-installed-prosecutor-is-unlawfully-serving-new-york-judge-rules-ms-now\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:30:20","slug":"yet-another-trump-installed-prosecutor-is-unlawfully-serving-new-york-judge-rules-ms-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/01\/08\/yet-another-trump-installed-prosecutor-is-unlawfully-serving-new-york-judge-rules-ms-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet another Trump-installed prosecutor is unlawfully serving, New York judge rules – MS NOW"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yet another top federal prosecutor installed by the\u00a0Trump administration<\/a>\u00a0is unlawfully serving in their role, this time in the Northern District of New York, a judge has found. That finding follows similar rulings against\u00a0Lindsey Halligan<\/a>\u2019s tenure in the Eastern District of Virginia and against other\u00a0purported top prosecutors<\/a>\u00a0in Nevada, New Jersey and California.<\/p>\n

The latest ruling came Thursday against John Sarcone III, whom the administration sought to install as the acting U.S. attorney for the Albany-based Northern District. He had requested that subpoenas be issued to the office of New York Attorney General\u00a0Letitia James<\/a>, apparently in connection with a federal investigation into civil cases she brought against Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association.<\/p>\n

James moved to quash the subpoenas, leading to the ruling that Sarcone was unlawfully serving.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Sarcone\u2019s service was and is unlawful because it bypassed the statutory requirements that govern who may exercise the powers of a U.S. Attorney,\u201d U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield\u00a0wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Obama-appointed judge noted that U.S. attorneys must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. She said that while federal law provides limited alternatives to temporarily fill vacancies, none of them authorized Sarcone to serve as acting U.S. attorney when he sought the subpoenas in question.<\/p>\n

Granting the state\u2019s motion to quash, the judge said Sarcone is disqualified from any further involvement in the prosecution or supervision of any investigation related to the Trump and NRA matters. <\/p>\n

Schofield noted the possibility that the federal government could attempt to reissue the subpoenas under the authority of a lawful prosecutor. If that happens, then James could still move to quash them on other grounds, such as her claims that they intrude on state sovereignty and are retaliatory. But the judge said she didn\u2019t need to address those claims yet, because the litigation could be resolved, for now at least, on the threshold issue of the legality of Sarcone\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

James, of course, figures in the Virginia appointment litigation as well, because she was one of Halligan\u2019s targets for prosecution. Finding in November that Halligan was unlawfully appointed, a judge dismissed the indictments she secured\u00a0against James<\/a>\u00a0and former FBI Director\u00a0James Comey<\/a>. The administration is appealing that ruling.\u00a0If it revives the cases, either with a successful appeal or a\u00a0lawful prosecutor<\/a>, the government would still face significant pretrial litigation, including the defense claims that their prosecutions are\u00a0unlawfully vindictive<\/a>, underscoring the retaliatory nature of the administration\u2019s efforts in both Virginia and New York.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the rulings against the installation of these prosecutors have served as a check of sorts, however mild, on the Trump administration\u2019s vengeful ambitions.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the\u00a0<\/strong>Deadline: Legal Newsletter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration\u2019s legal cases.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\tJordan\u00a0Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney\u2019s Office in Manhattan\u00a0and is the author of \u201cBizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet another top federal prosecutor installed by the\u00a0Trump administration\u00a0is unlawfully serving in their role, this time in the Northern District of New York, a judge has found. That finding follows similar rulings against\u00a0Lindsey Halligan\u2019s tenure in the Eastern District of Virginia and against other\u00a0purported top prosecutors\u00a0in Nevada, New Jersey and California. The latest ruling came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}