The power to appoint US Attorney candidates is delicately balanced across each of three branches of government. Under ideal circumstances, the President nominates a candidate who is confirmed by the Senate. When vacancies arise, interim-appointment authority is delegated to the Attorney General and District Court judges to select an interim-USA. However, under President Trump in 2025-26, a number of candidates have led USAOs, which have not been given approval by the legislature or federal judicial committees, being installed through extralegal appointment practices. This has drawn criticism not only of the quality of candidates nominated and installed in various US Attorney offices, but for the potential circumvention of Constitutional appointment protections.
The aim of this research is to contextualize the current state of appointments to USAO and their impact across the federal judiciary. In doing so, my mixed methods research explores the relationship between judicial appointments and the capacity for the courts to uphold Constitutional procedure; proposing the presence of unitarian judicial appointments decreases the capacity for the courts to uphold Constitutional procedure. Active prosecutors installed outside of Constitutional guidelines risk undermining the legitimacy of their appointments and subsequent prosecutorial actions. If unchecked, these practices could destabilize one of the most integral offices “to the role of law in [our] society,” with broad implications for the separation of powers and our rule of law. (Burbank, 1999, pp 317).