After a federal court found the administration's prior U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York was serving unlawfully, the district's judges invoked 28 U.S.C. § 546 to appoint veteran prosecutor Donald T. Kinsella, who was sworn in on February 11, 2026. Within about five hours, the White House emailed Kinsella that the president had removed him, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted that "judges don't pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does," telling Kinsella, "You are fired."
On February 11, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, H.R. 22 of the 119th Congress, on a near-party-line vote. The bill would require every American to produce documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — typically a birth certificate or passport — in order to register to vote or update voter registration information for federal elections. According to the Brennan Center for Justice and the ACLU, more than 21 million eligible American voters do not currently have ready access to the required documents. The bill is now in the Senate.
