Impasse Over Prosecutor Appointments Deepens With Firing of Second Judge-Chosen U.S. Attorney

For the second time in 10 days, the Justice Department has fired a U.S. attorney within hours after his appointment by a panel of judges. The action, this time in the Eastern District of Virginia, leaves the Trump administration and the judiciary at loggerheads, with each denying the other’s authority to name anyone to the posts in the absence of Senate confirmation.James W. Hundley, a former state prosecutor who was appointed and fired within about two hours on Friday, is the third person to be named to the Virginia job and subsequently removed since January 2025.With neither the administration nor the judges appearing ready to cave, it is unclear when or how the district will get a chief prosecutor. The impasse raises questions about the legal validity of any prosecutions brought in the district so long as it does not have a legally appointed leader.The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced the firing late Friday in a post on X, saying “Here we go again. EDVA judges do not pick our US Attorney. POTUS does. James Hundley, you’re fired!”The language was almost identical to that used by Mr. Blanche on February 11, when he announced the firing of the just-named U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, who had also been appointed by a panel of judges.“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does,” Mr. Blanche posted on that occasion. “See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella.”The Constitution does, in fact, give the president the power to name U.S. attorneys, subject to Senate confirmation, but does not spell out what should happen if the Senate declines to confirm a nominee, as was the case in the New York and Virginia districts.That situation is addressed in a federal law passed in 2007, following the unprecedented mid-term dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys by President George W. Bush. It allows the attorney general to fill such a vacancy for up to 120 days after which the district court may select its own nominee or extend the tenure of the president’s appointee.The administration argues that this law is unconstitutional and insists the attorney general can indefinitely appoint interim prosecutors, an argument that might ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.In both the New York and Virginia districts, Trump administration nominees had been blocked from Senate confirmation by that body’s blue slip tradition, under which a senator can effectively veto a nomination to certain positions, including U.S. attorney, in his or her home state. Both states have Democratic senators.In the New York case, a court ruled in January that John Sarcone III was serving illegally as U.S. attorney after he spent more than nine months in the post without Senate confirmation. Judges in the district proceeded to name Mr. Kinsella on February 11, only to see him fired hours later.In Virginia, the administration forced out its own appointee, Erik Siebert, in September following his failure to bring an indictment against the former FBI director, James Comey. It named Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney for President Trump, to replace him.However, the courts ruled that her appointment was not valid because she was the second person to have received an interim appointment to the same post, leading to the dismissal of cases she had brought against Mr. Comey and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James. The DOJ is appealing. That left the vacancy that the judges sought to fill on Friday.Mr. Hundley, the lawyer appointed and fired on Friday, is the co-founder of a Washington-area law firm that specializes in criminal defense and complex civil litigation. He previously served as an assistant prosecutor in the office of the state’s lead prosecutor for Fairfax County, Virginia.In its order of appointment, the district judges noted that Mr. Hundley “has successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court and has been appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court to serve as a Council Member at Large to the Virginia State Bar.”It added that he “has been a guest lecturer at local law schools as well as the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Education.

Impasse Over Prosecutor Appointments Deepens With Firing of Second Judge-Chosen U.S. Attorney

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