Donald Kinsella was a U.S. attorney for four hours and 10 minutes. That’s how long it took President Donald Trump to fire him as the top prosecutor for the Northern District of New York.
Trump’s action capped a chaotic tug-of-war between the president and federal judges from Upstate New York over the leadership of the U.S. Attorney’s Office serving 32 counties from Albany to Syracuse. The head-snapping back and forth raised questions about who is in charge of federal prosecutions, and for how long?
Events unfolded quickly.
Kinsella, a retired federal prosecutor, was recruited this week by a panel of federal judges to replace John Sarcone III, a Trump loyalist who had served as acting U.S. attorney since last year. Sarcone’s temporary appointment expired this week.
That prompted judges from the Northern District to fill the vacancy. They reached out to Kinsella on Tuesday, while he was traveling in South Carolina, he said. Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes swore in Kinsella during a Zoom call at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
But the job didn’t last long.
At 8:40 p.m., Kinsella received an email from Morgan DeWitt Snow, deputy director of presidential personnel at the White House, telling him he no longer had the job.
“The president has directed me to let you know that you have been removed as U.S. attorney,’” Kinsella said, paraphrasing the email from memory as he drove.
Not long after Kinsella got the email, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche made it clear in a post on X that Trump would not accept anyone he did not appoint.
“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella,” Blanche wrote.
As of Thursday evening, there appeared to be no U.S. attorney for the Northern District.
Sarcone, who now has the title first assistant U.S. attorney, appeared to be running things. His name remained atop the letterhead on news releases sent out by the office Thursday.
“I assume that Mr. Sarcone is in charge,” Kinsella said.
Sarcone did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.
Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who often writes on federal judicial selection, said Trump’s actions have created an unnecessary “soap opera” in the Upstate federal court system.
“It’s not healthy, right, for lawyers, litigants, the judges, the court staff, the people who live in the Northern District,” Tobias said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s a soap opera for no reason.”
Tobias said Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Department of Justice should sit down and find a person who is acceptable to all sides. But it is clear the White House is not interested in doing that, he said.
Asked for comment, the White House referred a reporter to Blanche’s post on X.
It is relatively rare for judges to appoint a U.S. attorney when there is a vacancy. It is rarer still for top officials in Washington, up to the president, to intervene and fire the person selected by judges.
But it has happened once already during the second Trump administration.
After a judge found the top prosecutor in New Jersey to be unlawfully in her job, a panel of judges used their authority under the law to fill the post.
The Justice Department promptly fired the veteran prosecutor selected by the judges. In an unconventional arrangement, three prosecutors are now sharing the responsibilities of the U.S. attorney.
A similar scenario unfolded in 2020 during the first Trump administration.
The attorney general at the time tried to oust the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, who had been selected by a panel of judges. After he would not leave voluntarily, the president fired him.
A former longtime prosecutor in Central New York said he couldn’t remember something like this happening in the past.
“These series of events are unusual, to say the least,” said John Duncan, who worked for decades in the U.S. attorney’s office.
Duncan said Kinsella is an experienced, well-respected lawyer. “Always a very cordial guy to deal with,” he said. “Very professional, very knowledgeable.”
Kinsella, 79, a Republican, has decades of experience as a lawyer and prosecutor.
He retired from the federal government in 2002 as the chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney’s office. He is now a senior counsel at the Albany law firm of Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna.
Kinsella, who grew up in Oneida, graduated from Syracuse University and the Boston University School of Law.
Thursday afternoon, the Northern District judges put out a statement thanking Kinsella for his willingness to serve.
“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,’’ the statement said.
Asked who is now in charge of the Northern District, Judge Sannes directed a reporter to call the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Multiple calls to that office’s media representatives went unanswered Thursday.
Sarcone, a Downstate Republican and Trump loyalist, had no experience as a prosecutor when he was put in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office last March on an interim basis.
A panel of Northern District judges refused in July to keep Sarcone around after his 120-day interim appointment expired.
The Trump administration put him back in office the same day by hiring him as a “special attorney.” The 210-day term of that appointment expired this week, creating a vacancy that the judges attempted to fill with Kinsella.
A federal judge last month ruled that Sarcone was not authorized under federal law to be in his position.
“Mr. Sarcone’s service was and is unlawful because it bypassed the statutory requirements that govern who may exercise the powers of a U.S. Attorney,” Senior U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield wrote. The Justice Department has appealed that decision.
Sarcone now has the title first assistant U.S. attorney.
New York’s two Democratic senators issued statements criticizing Trump’s firing of Kinsella.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called it “juvenile nonsense” and “the latest example of the chaos of the Trump administration failing Americans.”
“The people of upstate New York deserve a qualified, independent prosecutor, not another political loyalist,” Schumer said.
Kinsella said he probably set the record for briefest tenure as a U.S. attorney.
“It’s been an unusual day, to be sure,” he said.
Staff writer Tim Knauss can be reached byemailor at 315-470-3023.