LA’s top federal prosecutor throws down the gauntlet as noncitizen voter fight goes down to the wire

Los Angeles federal prosecutor Bill Essayli is calling on California officials to use a federal citizenship database to verify voter eligibility after an appeals court rejected President Donald Trump administration’s effort to set aside roughly 20,000 ballots tied to suspected noncitizens.

In a post on X, Essayli questioned why California could not use the same database it relies on to verify the citizenship of Medi-Cal applicants.

“This debate over noncitizens on California’s voter rolls could be resolved in under a day if California simply used the same federal database it has relied on for 40 years to confirm Medi-Cal applicants’ citizenship,” Essayli wrote.

He also claimed 34 other states already use the database to check voter eligibility and argued California could quickly submit its unredacted voter rolls for review.

“California has raised no issues with this database for Medi-Cal, so why not use it to check voter eligibility,” he wrote.

Essayli emphasized that noncitizens are prohibited from voting under both state and federal law, and said checking the voter rolls would help restore confidence in the election results.

“What is California afraid of?” he asked.

His comments came after the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a lower court’s decision rejecting the Justice Department’s emergency request to separate the disputed ballots.

In a 2–1 ruling, the appeals court found that doing so could disrupt Tuesday’s midterm elections and potentially prevent eligible voters from having their votes counted.

Trump also criticized the ruling Saturday, taking to Truth Social to defend Essayli and accuse the court of standing in the way of his administration’s efforts to address alleged election fraud.

“He is one of the best, EVER! He caught a massive number of Illegal Votes, 20,000, but potentially Hundreds of Thousands, and maybe even Millions, and the Court has just ruled against it,” Trump wrote.

The president also criticized the Senate’s blue-slip process, which allows senators to weigh in on nominees from their states and has complicated Essayli’s path to becoming a Senate-confirmed US attorney.

“We are going to continue our yearslong fight on Election Integrity,” Trump concluded.

The Justice Department has argued federal officials identified more than 20,000 likely noncitizens registered to vote in California, although those allegations have not established that 20,000 illegal votes were cast.

The administration sued California after Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan declined to comply with federal demands to review the disputed registrations within the requested timeframe.

US District Judge David O. Carter rejected the administration’s emergency request Wednesday, warning it could disrupt the election and disenfranchise eligible voters.

One appeals court judge dissented from Friday’s ruling, arguing California’s refusal to separate the ballots undermined federal efforts to prevent illegal voting.

Last week, Essayli warned potentially ineligible voters could already be casting ballots as election workers processed mail-in votes across the state.

“If you look at California’s own papers, they said they’ve already processed over 300,000 ballots just for LA County,” he told the California Post Saturday. “So this is going on as we speak.”

“Every minute that goes by, American citizen votes are being diluted in the state of California,” Essayli added. “It’s an emergency, and we expect the courts to treat it as such.”

Trump’s public defense of Essayli comes as the prosecutor faces a separate legal battle over his authority to lead the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Senior US District Judge John Michael Seabright ruled Tuesday that Essayli was unlawfully serving as a de facto US attorney, finding that the Trump administration could not bypass federal appointment requirements by assigning him successive titles and delegating the powers of the top prosecutor.

The ruling bars Essayli from participating in or supervising two criminal prosecutions, although the judge delayed the order while the government pursues a stay pending appeal. Seabright also declined to dismiss the indictments in those cases.

Essayli was initially appointed acting US attorney last year. Before the 120-day limit expired, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him first assistant US attorney, allowing him to remain in charge of the office without a Senate-confirmed replacement.

Essayli has vowed to challenge the ruling, saying the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the matter.

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