The Trump administration promptly fired a new top prosecutor on the same day he was appointed by a group of federal judges.
Donald Kinsella assumed his new role as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York at a closed-door ceremony Wednesday.
Within a matter of hours, Morgan DeWitt, who serves as special assistant to the White House personnel office, emailed to tell Kinsella he’d been canned.
Kinsella, 79, a veteran litigator in upstate New York who once served as the criminal chief in the same U.S. attorney’s office, told The New York Times he has no idea whether the Trump administration’s abrupt move is legal. He plans to discuss it Thursday with the judges who appointed him.
“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, [the president] does,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who’s also Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, wrote on X Wednesday.
“See Article II of our Constitution,” he added. “You are fired, Donald Kinsella.”
Blanche’s claim is technically true, within a very narrow interpretation of the relevant legal frameworks. Normally, the president nominates a U.S. attorney, who must then be confirmed by the Senate.
If there’s a temporary vacancy, the attorney general can name someone to serve as interim for periods of up to 120 days.
After that, district court judges are at liberty to appoint someone temporarily until the vacancy is filled by a Senate-confirmed presidential nominee.
The Trump administration had initially appointed John Sarcone as interim U.S. attorney. He had no prior prosecutorial experience and is reportedly went on to have a tempestuous relationship with judges in his district.
His tenure expired in July. The Justice Department then tried to avoid handing the matter over to federal justices by claiming Sarcone was no longer an “interim” per the normal rules, but rather an “acting” U.S. attorney under a separate legal framework, which would allow him to serve 210 rather than just 120 days.
Kinsella had otherwise been set to replace Sarcone after a judge ruled earlier in July the Justice Department’s workaround had been unlawful. Sarcone in any case dropped his “acting” title last week, after the expiry of the 210-day window.
The Justice Department has repeatedly used novel interpretations of the relevant statutes to appoint U.S. attorneys perceived as loyal to the MAGA cause.
The list has included Alina Habba, Trump’s ex-defense attorney, who served as acting U.S. Attorney in New Jersey.
Also on that list is Lindsey Halligan, another of the president’s former personal lawyers, who previously acted as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Halligan, who once competed in beauty pageants, made waves for her bungled handling of prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York state Attorney General Letitia James, both longstanding political foes of the president.
Judges have removed Habba and Halligan from their posts after, like Sarcone, they were determined to have held their posts unlawfully.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House, the Justice Department, and Kinsella for comment on this story.
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