Letitia James seeking to block probe by Trump-appointed prosecutor in N.Y.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to block a Justice Department investigation into some of her office’s most high-profile work and challenging the appointment of the Albany-based U.S. attorney overseeing the probes, according to court records unsealed Friday.

The legal battle, which has been playing out in secret for months, centers on two subpoenas that federal prosecutors in the Northern District of New York served on James’ office in August.

The first sought information related to the successful civil fraud case James brought in 2022 against Donald Trump and his real estate empire, accusing them of defrauding lenders with outsize claims of his wealth. The second centered on litigation James pursued against the National Rifle Association, which led to a court-mandated restructuring of the organization.

Both indicated they were issued as part of criminal investigations and were signed by John A. Sarcone III, a Trump loyalist appointed interim U.S. attorney in March, according to the unsealed court filings.

James has asked a federal judge to quash both requests, arguing that they constitute a broad federal effort to improperly interfere in state affairs and are part of a continuing effort by Trump to use the Justice Department to harass his perceived foes.

Her attorneys maintained in a motion unsealed Friday, the subpoenas are not enforceable because Sarcone has been illegally serving in the U.S. attorney’s job since this summer.

“The Trump Administration seeks to subvert the federal criminal justice system and to use the weight of its governmental powers to retaliate against and punish (the Office of the Attorney General) for its successful enforcement of New York law,” attorneys for James and her office wrote in the Aug. 19 filing. “This court should see through this brazen and transparent abuse of the grand jury power.”

The federal judge overseeing the matter – Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield – has not yet ruled on James’ request to block Sarcone’s subpoenas. But on Friday, she ordered that many of the legal filings surrounding the dispute be made public, rejecting objections from Justice Department lawyers.

In an opinion, Schofield noted that the questions raised by James’s attorneys are “matters of national concern with implications that stretch well beyond this action.”

“The public has a substantial and legitimate interest in the (Attorney General’s Office’s) motion…which concerns alleged retaliation by the executive branch, issues of state sovereignty and the purported improper appointment of the Northern District’s acting U.S. Attorney,” the judge wrote.

Sarcone’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Its filing defending the subpoenas remained sealed Friday, though Schofield said she intended to make them public soon.

James, a frequent target of Trump, is separately facing federal prosecution in a case in Virginia where she is accused of lying on a mortgage application during the 2020 purchase of a Norfolk home. She pleaded not guilty last week.

The documents unsealed Friday in federal court shed new light on two separate investigations that have been underway since this summer and could expose her and her office to further legal jeopardy. Sarcone’s probe of James’s civil fraud case against the Trump organization is based on a prosecution theory that she and others conspired to violate Trump’s civil rights, The Washington Post has reported.

The case has been a particularly intense grievance for the president. Last year, a New York state judge, siding with James, assessed a judgment resulting in more than $500 million in penalties plus interest. The judge found that Trump’s organization had purposely misrepresented the value of its properties and assets for years to secure more favorable loan and insurance rates.

A state appeals court voided those fines in August, calling them excessive, but left in place the lower court’s finding that Trump and others had committed fraud.

The newly unsealed court records show Sarcone issued his subpoenas to James’s office in early August seeking “any and all records” related to her fraud investigation as well as the separate litigation she pursued against the NRA. The subpoenas also sought information on any communications between James’s office and outside parties about either case.

James’s attorneys say that fulfilling Sarcone’s requests could involve poring over millions of pages of documents and involve the work of more than 100 lawyers, paralegals and other employees in James’s offices.

“Responding to the subpoenas would virtually cripple [the attorney general’s] ability to pursue pending and future investigations and litigation including more than 30 lawsuits against the federal government,” they wrote.

The lawyers asked Schofield to rule that Sarcone has no power to enforce the subpoenas, given questions over the legitimacy of his appointment. That argument is the latest in a series of challenges that have been lodged against Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys who, like Sarcone, have remained in their roles despite limits on the length of their terms.

The administration has used unusual bureaucratic maneuvers to keep some of its U.S. attorney picks on the job. In several recent cases, judges have said those moves violated federal laws and appeared designed to help controversial interim appointees avoid the Senate confirmation process, which is required for U.S. attorneys nominated for a full four-year term.

James has already marshaled similar arguments to challenge the mortgage fraud case against her in Virginia. There, her lawyers have argued that Trump unlawfully installed Lindsey Halligan, a handpicked loyalist, as U.S. attorney to ensure that James would be charged despite objections from career prosecutors who said there was insufficient evidence to proceed. A U.S. district judge has scheduled a Nov. 13 hearing on James’s motion.

Sarcone – like Halligan – had no prior prosecutorial experience before he was named interim U.S. attorney in Albany, an appointment that by law is limited to 120 days.

His immediate previous job was as a regional administrator for the General Services Administration, which manages government-owned properties. His tenure as Albany’s top federal prosecutor has been marked by several unusual incidents.

In June, he had his office issue a news release to announce that a knife-wielding undocumented immigrant from El Salvador had tried to kill him outside an Albany hotel. Surveillance footage later released by investigators showed the man did not come close to Sarcone with his weapon, and charges brought by local prosecutors were downgraded from attempted murder to a misdemeanor.

A month later, as Sarcone’s 120-day term neared its end, he told a local TV station that the federal judges in the Northern District of New York had extended his tenure through a process outlined in federal law. Within hours, the district’s judges issued a statement saying they had made no such decision, and days later, they opted not to reappoint him to his position but did not name a successor.

Justice Department officials then had Sarcone resign and reappointed him to the role of chief deputy in his office. They argued that because no one was serving in the office’s top job at that point, Sarcone could continue to lead the office.

The department deployed identical tactics to retain Alina Habba, Trump’s acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey; Sigal Chattah, its top prosecutor in Nevada; and Bill Essayli, the outspoken U.S. attorney in Los Angeles – all of whom judges have since ruled are unlawfully serving in their jobs.

But significantly, none of the judges have agreed to dismiss indictments or void other investigative steps taken by the U.S. attorneys’ offices headed by those appointees.

In their filings, James’s attorneys urged Schofield to be the first.

“Because Sarcone has no legitimate authority to serve as acting U.S. Attorney,” they wrote, “any process sought by him in that capacity, like these two subpoenas is unauthorized and unlawful.”