Rising This Week: The next domino to fall?

The lineup of Trump-installed prosecutors rebuked by judges keeps growing. John Sarcone may be next.

Trump-loyalist prosecutor John Sarcone (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)

A sincere thank you to All Rise News subscribers for your support throughout the year and your abiding interest in preserving the rule of law.

The collapse of the Donald Trump-ordered prosecutions of ex-FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James shouldn’t be viewed in isolation.

That’s because the dismissals represent the natural endpoint of a once-unprecedented phenomenon: the disqualification of a Trump-loyalist lawyer unlawfully transformed into an ersatz U.S. Attorney. No other president before Trump insisted upon installing loyalists in top prosecutor positions who couldn’t be confirmed by the Senate or approved by the judges of their districts. Not even Trump tried that gambit during his first term, but it’s now a routine feature of Trump 2.0.

The trend began with Trump’s one-time civil lawyer Alina Habba, who was the first Acting U.S. Attorney toppled from her perch in the District of New Jersey. Then, failed Nevada Attorney General candidate Sigal Chattah was disqualified from her top federal prosecutor perch, followed by the Central District of California’s Bill Essayli. Halligan’s downfall was more dramatic because she took the Comey and James cases down with her.

On Thursday, it will be the Northern District of New York’s John Sarcone’s time over the barrel during a hearing examining the legitimacy of his appointment.

A former Trump campaign lawyer, Sarcone fits in Halligan’s mold: An inexperienced loyalist who never previously served as a prosecutor before picking up a separate criminal investigation into the New York Attorney General whom his boss hates. If it were possible, Sarcone’s grand jury probe stands on even more shaky ground: He is investigating whether James violated criminal civil rights laws by bringing a pair of successful lawsuits against Trump’s business empire and the National Rifle Association.

James sued to quash Sarcone’s subpoena on multiple grounds, but the only argument before the court this week is whether Sarcone is illegitimately serving in his position. Every defendant who has made this argument during Trump’s second term has prevailed, a record that currently stands at 4-0.

All Rise News will be in federal court on Thursday to cover the arguments in Albany, N.Y.

It’s like a game of Whac-A-Mole.

Another loyalist, inexperienced, former Trump lawyer or GOP political operative turned purported U.S. Attorney pops up inside a federal judicial district after a judge knocks down a different one.

It’s easy to forget or get desensitized to the fact that this sequence of events was unprecedented in U.S. history until this year.

All Rise News is dedicated to following this issue because it’s at the core of whether U.S. federal prosecutors are answerable only to Trump or to the democratic checks and balances of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and U.S. law.

As another Thanksgiving dinner is fully digested, I am grateful to everyone who helped sustain this reporting.

Below the paywall:

Find out what’s happening next in the cases of Luigi Mangione, Maurene Comey, and Trump’s troop deployment in Los Angeles, along with information about another boycott over a shopping-heavy weekend and last week’s most popular calls to Congress.