Judge blocks Trump prosecutor’s IRS tax request, cites lack of authority

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A federal judge ruled Thursday that John Sarcone—identified as a Trump administration prosecutor in upstate New York—lacked lawful authority to seek tax return information in a criminal investigation, drawing on earlier findings about his appointment.

The decision came from U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield, who previously ruled in a related matter that Sarcone was not serving lawfully as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, and that actions taken in that capacity were “void or voidable,” according to the Associated Press report.

That earlier disqualification, issued the same day as Thursday’s tax ruling, involved Sarcone’s oversight role in investigations into Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James. In the James case, Schofield disqualified Sarcone from overseeing investigations, concluding he was not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney and tying the effect of the ruling to his “past or future acts” in the acting-capacity role.

In the separate Thursday ruling, Schofield denied Sarcone’s application for a court order directing the IRS to disclose tax return information for a limited liability company. The report said the tax-information application remains sealed and that it is not clear who filed the request dated Oct. 2.

The court concluded that applications for tax-return disclosures can be made only by officials holding specific positions, including U.S. attorneys, and Schofield said Sarcone did not have authority to authorize the application because he was not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney. The Associated Press report said the reasoning mirrored the court’s approach in the Letitia James case.

Sarcone was one of multiple prosecutors around the country that federal judges have found to lack authority after the Republican administration used unusual maneuvers to place them or keep them in their posts without U.S. Senate confirmation, the AP report said. Courts in other states—including New Jersey, Nevada and California—have held that similarly installed acting U.S. attorneys lacked lawful authority, the report added.

Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, told the Associated Press that Schofield’s ruling was consistent with previous decisions. He said it “does seem like more and more courts are coming around to this view.”

An email seeking comment was sent to the northern district, according to the AP report. The report also said Trump’s former personal attorney Alina Habba resigned as the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey in December after an appeals court said she had been serving unlawfully.

As covered in an earlier report on Jan. 8, Schofield’s disqualification in the James investigation set up the subsequent ruling on Sarcone’s authority to pursue tax-related investigative steps in that separate court fight.