The
Justice
Department’s
war
with
the
judiciary
over
US
Attorneys
continues
to
escalate,
with
Deputy
Attorney
General
Todd
Blanche
gleefully
pouring
gas
on
the
flames.
This
week’s
conflagration
involves
the
Northern
District
of
New
York,
which
has
been
officially
rudderless
since
January
8,
when
Judge
Lorna
Schofield
disqualified
John
Sarcone,
III
as
acting
US
Attorney.
She
also
quashed
the
subpoenas
he’d
issued
to
New
York
Attorney
General
Letitia
James
over
fraud
prosecutions
of
Trump
and
the
NRA
—
the
reason
he’d
been
hired
in
the
first
place,
despite
having
zero
prosecutorial
experience.
Because
of
the
Senate’s
blue
slip
rule,
Trump
is
unable
to
install
cronies
to
lead
prosecutors
offices
in
the
blue
states
where
his
enemies
tend
to
live.
That’s
a
huge
headache
for
Attorney
General
Pam
Bondi,
whose
job
depends
on
producing
the
abusive
indictments
her
boss
requires.
And
so
the
DOJ
has
resorted
to
various
wheezes,
including
appointing
said
cronies
as
special
attorneys
invested
with
all
the
power
of
a
US
Attorney
(wink,
wink).
Courts
have
uniformly
rejected
this
attempt
to
evade
the
requirement
of
Senate
confirmation,
and
eventually
Trump’s
personal
lawyers
Alina
Habba
and
Lindsey
Halligan
quit
pretending
to
be
prosecutors
and
wandered
off.
The
executive
and
judiciary
have
reached
an
uneasy
detente,
where
Bondi
leaves
said
crony
in
charge
as
the
First
Assistant
US
Attorney,
absent
the
prestige
and
job
title.
But
this
agreement
is
fragile,
thanks
to
28
USC
§
546(d),
which
allows
judges
in
the
district
to
appoint
a
lawyer
to
lead
the
office
if
the
position
is
vacant.
Pursuant
to
§
546(d),
Judges
in
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia
happily
blessed
the
continued
tenure
of
Erik
Seibert,
the
career
prosecutor
pushed
out
in
favor
of
Halligan
after
he
refused
to
file
garbage
indictments
of
Tish
James
and
Jim
Comey.
But
when
judges
in
the
District
of
New
Jersey
refused
to
keep
Alina
Habba
and
installed
a
career
prosecutor
instead,
Bondi
angrily
accused
them
of
going
“rogue”
and
threatening
the
president’s
Article
II
powers.
Up
in
Albany,
the
judges
appear
to
have
tired
of
Sarcone,
whose
tenure
has
been
decidedly
lackluster.
Aside
from
the
debacle
with
the
subpoenas
for
AG
James,
Sarcone
seems
to
have
fabricated
details
of
an
“attack”
outside
a
hotel,
leading
reporters
to
discover
that
his
claimed
residence
was
vacant
and
boarded
up.
Back
in
July,
Sarcone
told
reporters
that
the
court
had
opted
to
retain
him,
prompting
the
judges
to
issue
a
press
release
stating
that
they’d
done
no
such
thing.
Perhaps
this
is
why
Trump
never
even
officially
nominated
Sarcone
for
the
job
—
in
fact,
he
never
nominated
anyone.
In
June,
Sarcone
told
Law.com
that
the
president
knew
he’d
never
get
a
US
Attorney
confirmed
because
of
the
blue
slip
rule,
but
would
soon
nominate
Sarcone
for
a
seat
on
the
federal
bench.
This
makes
complete
sense
…
if
you
have
no
idea
how
the
blue
slip
rule
works.
On
Wednesday,
after
months
of
waiting
for
the
executive
branch
to
rouse
itself
from
its
torpor,
the
district
judges
exercised
their
statutory
authority
to
appoint
Donald
Kinsella,
a
highly
competent
practitioner
with
five
decades
of
legal
experience.
At
which
point,
the
Justice
Department
lost
its
shit
…
again.
“Judges
don’t
pick
U.S.
Attorneys,
@POTUS
does,”
DAG
Blanche
tweeted,
announcing
that
he’d
fired
Kinsella
just
five
hours
after
his
appointment.
Of
course,
@POTUS
has
not
picked
a
US
Attorney.
And
even
if
he
had,
he’d
still
have
to
get
that
person
confirmed
by
the
Senate.
Blanche
is
currently
trying
to
get
the
judges
in
New
Jersey
to
anoint
his
30-year-old
chief
of
staff
as
US
Attorney
under
§
546(d).
But
at
this
point,
he’d
probably
have
better
luck
trying
to
bully
Judiciary
Chair
Chuck
Grassley
into
ditching
the
blue
slip
rule.
Oh,
well,
what’s
the
worst
that
can
happen
at
all
those
US
Attorneys
offices
in
three
more
years?
Liz
Dye produces
the
Law
and
Chaos Substack and podcast. You
can
subscribe
by
clicking
the
logo:
