Trump’s Loyalist Prosecutors Continue To Get Kicked Off Cases Because They’re Not Legally Appointed

from the patron-skank-of-lost-causes dept

Trump’s binge-and-purge approach to handling the DOJ definitely isn’t working out for him. The administration has been steadily pushing prosecutors out for failing to be MAGA enough, especially when it comes to Trump’s steady stream of vindictive, politically motivated prosecutions.

Not only are prosecutors finding themselves trumped (pun intended) by grand juries when trying to lock up people for exercising their First Amendment right to protest anti-immigration efforts, but career DOJ prosecutors are quitting (or getting fired) for refusing to be part of Trump’s lawfare.

This leaves the DOJ with a lot of openings it can’t easily fill. And the openings at the top — US attorneys and assistant US attorneys — can’t just be filled by anyone Trump happens to like. These are appointed positions that must be approved by the legislative branch. Trump has constantly ignored this co-equal branch of the government in order to stock his cabinet with loyalists, like Trump’s former personal lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, who was apparently qualified to be a US attorney thanks to her several years of experience as [squints at bio] an insurance lawyer.

Halligan has already seen high-profile prosecutions set aside by courts because she doesn’t legally hold this position. Now, there’s another Trump toady going through the same thing Halligan experienced for the same reason: he doesn’t have any legal claim to the position he’s currently in.

A federal judge on Thursday disqualified the Trump loyalist top prosecutor in upstate New York and tossed subpoenas his office has issued to state Attorney General Letitia James.

[…]

U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield, appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote in a 24-page opinion that John Sarcone III has been unlawfully serving as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York.

Here’s how the administration attempted to keep John Scarone operative long enough to pursue its vindictive prosecution of Letitia James, taken from the 24-page decision [PDF]:

Mr. Sarcone’s service was and is unlawful because it bypassed the statutory requirements that govern who may exercise the powers of a U.S. Attorney. U.S. Attorneys must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. When a vacancy arises, federal law provides limited alternatives to fill the position temporarily. None authorized Mr. Sarcone to serve as Acting U.S. Attorney on August 5, 2025, when he relied on the authority of the office to request the subpoenas.

The U.S. Attorney General initially appointed Mr. Sarcone as Interim U.S. Attorney for 120 days. When that term expired, this District’s judges declined to use their statutory authority to extend his tenure. Federal law then required the use of other statutory procedures to fill the position. The Department of Justice did not follow those procedures. Instead, on the same day that the judges declined to extend Mr. Sarcone’s appointment, the Department took coordinated steps — through personnel moves and shifting titles — to install Mr. Sarcone as Acting U.S. Attorney. Federal law does not permit such a workaround.

Not all that clever. But no one expects anything more (or is it anything less?) from this administration. We’ll have to wait and see if Sarcone will respect this ruling and relegate himself to a lower position. I mean, it’s not impossible to think this might happen. After all, others in his same (ill-gotten) position have taken themselves out of the equation, rather than create further legal problems for Trump’s vindictive prosecutions.

In early December, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba resigned following an appeals court ruling upholding her disqualification. Shortly thereafter, Delaware U.S. Attorney Julianne Murray also left her post, citing the Habba ruling.

Then again, Sarcone might decide he’s just another Lindsey Halligan. Halligan has also been told by the court that she cannot legally hold the US Attorney title due to the same sort of Trump shenanigans. And those rulings have seen the indictments she managed to secure against former FBI director James Comey and NY Attorney General Letitia James thrown out by a federal judge.

And yet, she refuses to learn anything from this experience. Worse, she’s apparently so enthralled with her position of power she can’t even be bothered to pretend someone else in the DOJ (who has secured their position legally) is handling the cases she’s no longer allowed to lead.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Lindsey Halligan to explain why she continues to identify herself as a U.S. attorney despite a different judge finding her appointment as the top federal prosecutor in eastern Virginia was invalid.

U.S. District Judge David Novak, who sits in Richmond, gave Halligan seven days to provide the basis for her use of the title and ordered her to explain why her identification as U.S. attorney “does not constitute a false or misleading statement.”

Novak also instructed Halligan to lay out the reasons why the court “should not strike Ms. Halligan’s identification as United States attorney” from an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in early December. Halligan’s name is listed on the indictment and her title as “United States attorney and special attorney.”

This order [PDF] is much shorter, probably because this federal district has already said the same thing to Halligan previously in longer opinions and orders. But those didn’t change anything about how Halligan refers to herself in court filings. According to the CBS News report, the DOJ itself sent out a memo instructing everyone to refer to Halligan by the title she legally doesn’t have.

But as the court has already noted, Pam Bondi’s attempt to retcon Halligan into legality on September 22, 2025 didn’t actually make that happen. All it did was provide more evidence showing the administration knew Halligan had bypassed the required appointment process and hoped it could just slip her through the door without anyone noticing.

All of this just goes to show we’re dealing with a bunch of people who have decided they don’t serve their country or their offices. They only serve their chosen king. And that’s something even Trump voters didn’t vote for, because you don’t elect a king. Halligan is, of course, welcome to continue to ignore these court orders. But all that means for Trump’s DOJ is that every case it brings in the Eastern District of Virginia will be tossed as soon as it hits the docket.

Filed Under: alina habba, doj, john sarcone, letitia james, lindsey halligan, trump administration, vindictive prosecution