Trump gives New York attorney new title after judges reject his appointment [View all]
Source: The Guardian
Fri 18 Jul 2025 06.00 EDT
Last modified on Fri 18 Jul 2025 06.35 EDT
Donald Trump has given a New York prosecutor a new job title to keep him in power after federal judges rejected his appointment.
John Sarcone III was supposed to be removed as interim US attorney for New York’s northern district after a judicial panel refused to make his appointment permanent. Instead, the justice department has made him “special attorney to the attorney general” with the same powers and no time limit.
The appointment represents Trump’s curious pattern of working around traditional oversight mechanisms. Unlike his first term, when all 85 US attorney nominees were confirmed by the Senate, his second administration has formally nominated only about a quarter of that number, relying instead on interim appointments that bypass Senate confirmation.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond trying to make sense of the appointment said the justice department is using a federal law called 28 US Code Section 515 to justify the move, but he says that’s a stretch. That law allows for “special attorneys” to handle specific cases, but this sort of application may not be intended to let someone serve as both acting US attorney and first assistant at the same time.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/18/trump-new-york-attorney-john-sarcone
REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143494837
= new reply since forum marked as read