A divided federal appeals court ruled that John Sarcone, the Trump-picked US Attorney in Albany, can no longer be involved in the investigation into Letitia James, the state’s Attorney General. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling from January which stated that Sarcone’s appointment is not valid and disqualified him from the probe.

The decision marks the third time a federal appeals court has rejected as unlawful the Trump administration’s process for naming US attorneys without Senate approval. Earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the US attorney for Nevada, Sigal Chattah, is serving unlawfully, while in December the Third Circuit ruled that Alina Habba was not validly appointed US attorney for New Jersey.

The impact of these decisions has varied; in some cases where the US attorney acted alone, indictments or subpoenas were dismissed. However, in other instances where the status of the US attorneys was successfully challenged, indictments were not dismissed because other legally serving assistant US attorneys were involved in the underlying cases. The Justice Department intends to take this case to the Supreme Court.

This is a summary. Read the original at yahoo.com.