A Trump U.S. Attorney’s Professional Misconduct Must Be Kept “Private and Confidential”
· The Intercept
An ethics watchdog found that a Trump administration-appointed former U.S. attorney committed professional misconduct in response to allegations that included retaliating against a newspaper for negative coverage. But details about John Sarcone’s case have been deemed “private and confidential” — and aren’t being released to the public.
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One of New York state’s grievance committees, disciplinary panels that determines penalties for violations of legal ethics, notified nonprofit groups last week of its finding against Sarcone, Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again U.S. attorney in Albany.
The committee is keeping mum on the exact nature of its findings, and in a letter to a press freedom group last week, it even tried to claim that the foundation could not disclose the very fact that it found “there was sufficient basis for a finding of professional misconduct.”
“No complainant, but especially a press freedom organization, should be told to keep quiet about something so plainly newsworthy and important to New Yorkers and Americans.”
The letter from the Attorney Grievance Committee for the Appellate Division, Third Department, was dated April 1 and sent via email on May 8. The committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on when the finding was reached.
The committee’s actions fit in a larger pattern of New York shrouding prosecutorial misconduct investigations in secret. One of the groups that filed a complaint, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said it was time for the state’s legal ethics cops to stop insisting on silence.
“Sarcone is a high-ranking prosecutor who is at the center of national news as we speak and who the New York Grievance Committee found had engaged in professional misconduct after he retaliated against a news outlet,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the foundation. “No complainant, but especially a press freedom organization, should be told to keep quiet about something so plainly newsworthy and important to New Yorkers and Americans.”
Sarcone and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In an emailed statement, the grievance committee said it was following state laws. Under that law, chief committee attorney Monica Duffy said, “until such time as charges of professional misconduct are sustained against an attorney in a public order of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, all papers, documents and records concerning this Committee’s investigation and disposition of any grievance complaint concerning the conduct of that attorney are sealed and deemed private and confidential.”
Sarcone had no prosecutorial experience when the Trump administration tapped him to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York last year. Since then, he has been involved in a long-running saga over whether he can even run the office.
Sarcone has never been confirmed by the U.S. Senate. After his temporary appointment to the post expired, judges appointed a veteran prosecutor to fill the post. That replacement was fired within hours. Sarcone has continued to oversee the office as state Attorney General Letitia James and Justice Department lawyers argue in court over whether he lawfully holds the office.
The administration has a major incentive to keep the Trump loyalist in charge: The Albany prosecutor’s office has jurisdiction over New York state politicians who have drawn the president’s ire, including James.
In addition to the question of whether he can hold the office, Sarcone has faced criticism for booting the Albany newspaper off his office’s press list after it reported that he had attempted to claim a boarded-up apartment building in the district as his home to satisfy residency requirements.
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That action was a violation of the First Amendment, the Freedom of the Press Foundation argued in the August 11 complaint it filed with the grievance committee, along with Reinvent Albany and the Demand Progress Education Fund. The complaint alleged that Sarcone may have violated at least four of the state’s rules of professional conduct.
In the response to the complaint sent last week, the committee said that “after deliberation, the Committee determined there was a sufficient basis for a finding of professional misconduct and took appropriate action.”
The case was now closed, the committee said. In the letter dated April 1, the committee said that it had reached its conclusion at a “recent” meeting.
What “appropriate action” the committee took is unclear. There are no records of public discipline in Sarcone’s entry on the state attorney directory. The committee has a range of actions it can take short of public discipline, including private letters of reprimand.
Another group that filed a similar complaint against Sarcone, Campaign for Accountability, received a near-identical letter from the grievance committee. In a statement, that group noted that Sarcone remains in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office with a title of first assistant.
“A secret slap on the wrist is insufficient.”
“While we’re pleased the New York Attorney Grievance Committee recognized that Mr. Sarcone, who remains First Assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, engaged in professional misconduct, a secret slap on the wrist is insufficient. Mr. Sarcone’s pattern of conduct reflects on his credibility as an officer of the court, so any court in which he appears — along with the public — deserves to know what he was sanctioned for and why,” said Campaign for Accountability’s executive director, Michelle Kuppersmith.
The letters to both complainants including a heading indicating that they were “confidential.” Stern said that attempting to force people who filed complaints to remain silent about the letters they receive in response would be unconstitutional.
One state grievance committee previously tried to clamp down on law professors who shared details about the complaints they had filed against local prosecutors accused of failing to turn over exculpatory evidence or lying in court. The professors sued and won a federal district court ruling in their favor.
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