ALBANY Just hours after a panel of federal judges for the Northern District of New York voted to place a new interim U.S. Attorney in charge of prosecutions in the region, the Trump administration moved to fire him.

On Wednesday, the panel of judges moved to appoint Donald Kinsella, a longtime litigator in Albany with federal prosecutorial experience, to the position of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York. The move came within the panel’s Constitutional capacity to appoint a prosecutor when there is a vacancy and nobody has been nominated by the President for the role.

But within five hours of Kinsella’s private swearing-in, the White House fired him, arguing that the judges lacked the authority.

It’s a public sign of the ongoing tension between President Donald Trump and his administration with the federal judiciary, and another step in the ongoing saga of securing a legal, qualified and satisfactory prosecutor for the federal government in Northern New York.

Since early 2025, the Northern District’s U.S. Attorney has been John A. Sarcone III, a lawyer who represented Trump in a handful of cases and has no experience as a prosecutor. Sarcone was appointed to the job on an interim basis by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

But the Trump administration hasn’t tried to get Sarcone the full job. That requires that he be submitted for a formal nomination and to answer questions from the Senate, which has the power to advise and consent on U.S. Attorney appointments. Instead, they’ve left Sarcone in his interim job and tried to provide him with alternative titles, like first assistant U.S. Attorney, to keep him in the job without the full review process.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that the administration had appointed Sarcone illegally, and he did not in fact possess the authorities of the job. That ruling threw out two subpoenas Sarcone had filed demanding documents from New York’s Attorney General Letitia James.

But rather than leave the position, Sarcone and the administration are fighting it, and have requested a stay for that ruling. While that stay hasn’t been granted, Sarcone has still occupied the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York and continues to conduct the duties of the job.

But on Tuesday, another legal timeline for Sarcone expired. The 210-day limit for acting U.S. attorney appointments expired that day. The next day, a panel of the district’s judges moved to elevate Kinsella, a Republican who has no direct ties to Trump, to the job under their constitutional authority.

Sarcone reverted his title to first assistant U.S. attorney on Tuesday. That position assumes the role of interim U.S. attorney when that job is vacant.

The panel of judges has previously rebuffed Sarcone’s appointment. In July of last year, the panel declined to permanently appoint him to the interim role — their vote came three days after Sarcone falsely told an Albany-area T.V. news station WNYT he’d been appointed permanently.

Now, it appears Sarcone will remain in his role despite the court’s ruling he is illegally occupying the job. It’s not clear when a ruling on his request to stay the order invalidating his nomination will come down, or if the Trump administration will give up on its efforts to keep him in the job should a final ruling uphold the lower court’s decision.

The administration has fought a similar battle in other jurisdictions; courts in California, Nevada, New Jersey and Virginia have all ruled that interim U.S. Attorneys appointed by the Trump Justice Department have failed to reach the legal muster to keep their jobs long-term. None of those cases have made it to the U.S. Supreme Court for final adjudication.