(NEW YORK) — The nationwide fight over the Trump Administration’s top prosecutors moves to an Albany courtroom this morning, when a federal judge hears arguments about whether Acting U.S. Attorney John Sarcone has the authority to act as Northern New York’s chief law enforcement officer.
New York Attorney General Letitia James began the legal fight against Sarcone after the Federal Bureau of Investigation served two grand jury subpoenas to her office for documents related to the civil cases against the Trump Organization and National Rifle Association.
The oral arguments over the legitimacy of the subpoenas and criminal investigation comes one week after a judge in Virginia dismissed a criminal mortgage fraud case against James over issues with the appointment of Trump’s handpicked prosecutor.
Lawyers for the attorney general’s office argue that the subpoenas and ongoing criminal investigations are a “flagrant abuse of the criminal justice system” to punish James’ office for bringing cases against the president, his business and his allies.
“The Executive Branch seeks to transform a personal grievance, which failed as civil claims, into a federal criminal prosecution—a plain and calculated campaign to harass a law enforcement agency that held Mr. Trump and his organization to account,” attorneys wrote in a motion to quash the subpoenas.
Last year, James won a half-billion-dollar penalty against Trump for inflating his net worth to secure better business deals, but a state appeals court vacated the financial penalty when it upheld the ruling earlier this year. According to court filings, a grand jury in Albany issued two subpoenas in August to the office to turn over any documents or records related to both cases to the Justice Department.
James’s office moved to quash both the subpoenas in August by arguing the subpoenas were issued in bad faith, lacked a legitimate legal basis, violated state sovereignty, infringed on First Amendment protections and were issued by an unlawfully appointed federal prosecutor.
“The U.S. Department of Justice asks this Court to treat this as an ordinary case. It portrays the subpoenas as routine. And it recites the usual standards governing grand jury investigations — while trying to ignore and trying to convince this Court to ignore the extraordinary reality before it, that these subpoenas are a flagrant abuse of the criminal justice system, even by this President’s standards,” lawyers for the office wrote.
Prosecutors with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York have defended the subpoenas by arguing that the grand jury has vast power to investigate James because she allegedly “repeatedly promised to investigate, prosecute and sue the NRA and President Trump.”
“The challenged subpoenas … were issued by a validly empaneled grand jury in the Northern District of New York, which is entitled to investigate whether Attorney General Letitia James — alone or in concert with others — violated federal law by selectively pursuing the NYOAG Lawsuits against the NRA and President Trump when other similarly situated entities and individuals went unpursued,” prosecutors wrote.
The legal fight took on an added significance in recent months as the Trump administration’s policy of circumventing the Senate confirmation process for many of its U.S. attorneys has been scrutinized and rejected by federal judges.
A federal judge recently dismissed criminal cases against James and former FBI Director James Comey because the president’s handpicked prosecutor lacked the authority to bring the cases, and a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a decision on Monday disqualifying Alina Habba as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield — a judge in the Southern District of New York overseeing the case after Northern District judges recused themselves — narrowed the purpose of today’s hearing to the sole question of whether Sarcone’s allegedly unlawful appointment invalidates the subpoenas.
Sarcone has functioned as the Acting U.S. attorney in Northern New York, but a panel of judges in July refused to permanently appoint him to lead the office following his controversial interim tenure. In response, Attorney General Pam Bondi named him as a “special attorney to the attorney general” who can indefinitely serve as northern New York’s top federal prosecutor.
Similar legal standoffs have sprouted across the country over the last few months, as federal courts have disqualified the U.S. attorneys in Nevada, California, and New Jersey. In each case, the Trump administration’s original picks to lead the office have remained in charge, bucking the long-standing practice of having the Senate confirm the president’s picks for the positions.
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