Donald T. Kinsella lasted less than a day as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York. A district court board of judges appointed him to the vacant post and swore him in on Wednesday. By the end of that same day, the Trump administration had removed him.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the move bluntly on X:
Judges don't pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella
Morgan DeWitt Snow, the Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel, formally notified Kinsella of his removal — without explanation, according to the court.
The core dispute here is straightforward: who gets to pick a U.S. attorney?
The district court says it acted under 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), which empowers a district court to appoint a U.S. attorney "to serve until the vacancy is filled," Fox News reported. In a Thursday statement, the court leaned into the constitutional text to justify the move:
The United States Constitution expressly provides for this grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, which states in part: 'the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment' of officials such as United States Attorneys 'in the Courts of Law.' By the end of the day, Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel, Morgan DeWitt Snow notified Mr. Kinsella that he was removed as the judicially-appointed United States Attorney, without explanation.
Blanche cited the same article of the Constitution — Article II — but reached the opposite conclusion. The president picks U.S. attorneys. Full stop.
Both sides waving the same constitutional provision at each other makes for an interesting legal standoff. But the administration's position reflects a bedrock principle of executive authority: federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the president. They enforce the president's laws, carry out the president's priorities, and answer — ultimately — to the president. A judiciary that can install its own prosecutors is a judiciary that has crossed the line from interpreting law to executing it.
The Northern District of New York didn't just wake up with an empty chair. The seat had been contested for weeks.
John Sarcone III had been serving as acting U.S. attorney, but in January, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that the Department of Justice took improper action to keep Sarcone in the role past the 120-day limit for U.S. attorneys whom the Senate has not confirmed. Sarcone demoted himself to first assistant attorney while the ruling is appealed.
That created the vacancy the court moved to fill — and the collision that followed.
The sequence matters. A judge declared the DOJ's interim arrangement illegal. The court then used the resulting vacancy to install its own pick. The administration then removed that pick within hours. Each step escalated the underlying tension between a judiciary asserting appointment power and an executive branch determined to hold the line on prosecutorial control.
This isn't really about Donald T. Kinsella. The court's Thursday statement praised him generously:
The Court thanks Donald T. Kinsella for his willingness to return to public service so that this vacancy could be filled with a qualified, experienced former prosecutor, and for his years of distinguished work on behalf of the citizens of the Northern District of New York.
By all accounts, Kinsella is a respected former prosecutor. Nobody disputes his qualifications. The fight is about the principle underneath.
If district courts can appoint U.S. attorneys and those appointments are functionally irrevocable, then the judiciary holds a lever over federal prosecution that the Founders never intended. U.S. attorneys don't just file paperwork — they set enforcement priorities, decide which cases to bring, and determine how federal power lands in their districts. That authority flows from the elected president for a reason. It's accountable. It's removable. It answers to voters, not to a board of judges.
The statute the court cited — 28 U.S.C. § 546(d) — exists as a gap-filler, a mechanism to keep an office functioning when nominations stall. It was never designed to let courts install prosecutors over the objection of the executive branch. Treating it as a weapon in an inter-branch dispute stretches the provision past its purpose.
This episode fits a broader dynamic that has defined the Trump era: federal courts testing the outer boundaries of judicial authority against an executive that refuses to cede ground. District judges have tried to run immigration policy from the bench, halt executive orders with nationwide injunctions, and micromanage agency staffing. Court-appointed prosecutors would be a new frontier.
The administration's response — swift, unapologetic, grounded in Article II — signals that the White House sees this clearly and isn't interested in letting a precedent set itself through inaction.
As of Friday, the White House had not publicly commented beyond Blanche's post. The Northern District's vacancy remains unfilled. And somewhere in New York, Donald T. Kinsella holds the record for the shortest tenure of a U.S. attorney who never got the chance to prosecute a single case.
