EDNY chief Joseph Nocella must be independent of Trump, local GOP

The federal judges of the Eastern District of New York will soon have an important decision to make: Will they let Joseph Nocella, a former Nassau County judge and municipal lawyer, continue serving as interim U.S. attorney after his 120-day appointment expires Sept. 2.

Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump's nomination of Nocella is blocked by Sen. Chuck Schumer, using an obscure procedural tactic. A district's federal judges are now the last resort to guard against unchecked prosecutorial power by the executive branch when the confirmation process is stalled.

Last Thursday, Alina Habba, who has no legitimate credentials for such a post — unless you count defending Trump on TV — was barred from continuing to serve as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey after her interim appointment expired and the federal judges in that state refused to extend her service. In the few weeks of her tenure, Habba opened an investigation of Gov. Phil Murphy, had the mayor of Newark arrested and charged a member of Congress with assault. All of her targets were Democrats.  In the Northern District of New York, John Sarcone, who claimed legal residence in a boarded-up building and exaggerated stories of being accosted with a knife, has demonstrated his unsuitability. The federal district judges upstate have refused to continue his tenure.

Four months should be enough time to determine competence and ethical behavior. Nocella was a federal prosecutor in EDNY early in his career, so he does know what once were the Department of Justice guidelines for nonpartisan conduct. His tenure so far has surfaced no controversies and the expectation is that he will protect the reputation of his office from the alarming demands for selective prosecutions emanating from a tumultuous DOJ in Washington.

It's much harder to determine the flip side, whether an office that has aggressively pursued public corruption investigations in the past would step back from that role now for partisan reasons.

The state recently installed new leadership at the Nassau University Medical Center, which has made a criminal referral to the EDNY concerning former CEO Meg Ryan, who allegedly made excessive payouts before her departure, shredded records and wiped clean computer hard drives that may have contained valuable evidence about misspent funds and vendor contracts.

Such service contracts are the lifeblood of political organizations seeking donations, and Ryan is close to top Nassau County GOP figures. Earlier this year, GOP leader Joseph Cairo boasted at a fundraiser of taking Nocella with him to visit Mar-a-Lago in an effort to have Trump nominate him over others jockeying for the prestigious post. 

Besides serving as a family court judge in Nassau, Nocella was the town attorney for Hempstead and Oyster Bay and managing attorney for the county's legal department, all positions that require the party's blessing. One clear sign that Nocella recognizes the need to avoid even the perception of a conflict would be to allow the career prosecutors in his office to pursue this investigation without any interference.