President Donald Trump terminated a freshly installed court-appointed U.S. attorney in the Northern District of New York this week, just hours after federal judges voted to place him in the role, escalating a multistate constitutional standoff over who controls federal prosecutors.
The firing of Donald Kinsella — and the Trump administration's argument that only the president holds removal authority over executive branch officers — has deepened a legal dispute playing out across at least five states, with former Justice Department official John Yoo saying Article II of the Constitution settles the question squarely in the president's favor.
The dispute has drawn sharp reactions from both the administration and congressional Democrats, placing federal courts, the Senate and the White House on a collision course over prosecutorial authority.
Under federal law, U.S. attorneys are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. When the Senate does not act, the president may install a temporary appointee for a limited period, typically 120 days. If that window closes without a confirmed nominee, district court judges may appoint a replacement to prevent a vacancy.
That is precisely what happened in northern New York. Trump appointee John Sarcone had been serving on a temporary basis, but his term expired. Last month, Judge Lorna Schofield issued a ruling disqualifying Sarcone, a decision the Department of Justice is now appealing, Fox News reports.
With the seat empty, federal judges in the Northern District voted this week to install Kinsella. Within hours, the president removed him. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the termination on social media, declaring that judges "don't pick" U.S. attorneys and suggesting the court's action was unconstitutional.
Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Fox News Digital that while the judges acted within the bounds of the vacancy statute, the president retains ultimate authority to dismiss any officer in the executive branch. He pointed to Article II and the "take care" clause as the constitutional foundation.
"No matter how an executive officer is appointed … none of these positions under the Constitution have any specific way to remove the officers, and so the president can remove all officers in the executive branch, particularly all officers in the Justice Department."
Yoo noted a critical distinction: while the attorney general lacks authority to fire court-appointed prosecutors, the president does not share that limitation. He described the appointment mechanism as a statutory "quirk" that does not override the constitutional chain of command.
The broader conflict stems from the Senate's blue slip tradition, which effectively gives home-state senators veto power over U.S. attorney nominations. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has ruled out approving any of Trump's nominees in the state. After Kinsella's firing, Schumer issued a statement:
"Everyone knows Trump only cares about one quality in a U.S. Attorney — complete political subservience."
That accusation rings hollow when the senator doing the accusing has openly declared he will block every nominee regardless of qualifications. If Schumer refuses to evaluate any candidate on merit, it becomes difficult to argue that the president, not the Senate minority leader, is the one acting out of pure politics.
The Northern District of New York is far from the only battleground. In New Jersey, a lower court determined that Alina Habba's temporary term had expired, and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that finding. Trump subsequently fired the court-appointed replacement. In the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan brought indictments against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey before a judge found her improperly appointed and dismissed the cases. The DOJ is appealing that decision as well.
Similar legal setbacks for interim appointees have occurred in California and Nevada, though specific case details in those states remain limited. The DOJ has not yet elevated any of these disputes to the Supreme Court, with Habba's case being the furthest along in the appellate process.
In court filings from Habba's case, DOJ attorneys argued that maintaining executive branch oversight of U.S. attorney offices is essential for the proper functioning of federal law enforcement, even during periods without a Senate-confirmed or interim prosecutor in place. The question now is whether the high court will ultimately be asked to resolve what the Constitution requires when judges, senators and the president all claim a piece of the same authority.
