Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor pushed back against a federal judge’s ruling that he can’t legally continue serving as acting US attorney.
Bill Essayli, First Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California, insisted that the decision has no immediate effect on his authority to oversee federal prosecutions.
“Just so there’s no confusion, today’s order is stayed and has no immediate effect,” Essayli said on social media.
“I remain First Assistant U.S. Attorney and continue running the office. The Supreme Court will ultimately decide this matter.”
US District Judge J. Michael Seabright ruled on Tuesday that Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘defacto’ United States Attorney.”
While the decision may affect Essayli’s capacity to oversee cases. Seabright denied motions to dismiss two cases filed while Essayli continued to be in charge of the office under a different title.
Last year, the Trump administration appointed Essayli to serve as Acting US Attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles.
Then-US Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him First Assistant US Attorney before the 120-day limit on his Acting US Attorney role.
In October 2025, Seabright disqualified Essayli from overseeing several criminal cases, arguing that he had overstayed the time allowed for the position.
Still, Essayli was allowed to continue to serve as a First Assistant U.S. attorney. The Trump administration never appointed a replacement for him.
Judge Seabright’s ruling comes as Essayli is fighting a separate legal battle over California’s mail-in ballots.
A Los Angeles federal judge is expected to rule Wednesday on the Trump administration’s request to set aside thousands of mail-in ballots belonging to voters federal officials suspect are not US citizens.
During a hearing Tuesday, attorneys for the Department of Justice and California officials presented arguments over the administration’s effort to separate ballots belonging to roughly 20,000 voters federal prosecutors believe were unlawfully registered. The judge appeared reluctant to grant the request.
Essayli and Attorney General Todd Blanche have been leading the Justice Department’s effort to require California election officials to set aside the disputed ballots and verify voters’ citizenship before counting their votes.
“Every minute that goes by, American citizen votes are being diluted in the state of California,” Essayli said last week. “It’s an emergency, and we expect the courts to treat it as such.”
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and the government says some people have already been criminally charged over alleged illegal registration and voting.
As the court battle played out this past weekend, Essayli told the California Post he feared that noncitizens could be illegally casting ballots as polling places opened across LA County.
“If you look at California’s own papers, they said they’ve already processed over 300,000 ballots just for LA County,” he said Saturday. “So this is going on as we speak.”
The Department of Justice sued the state over its list of roughly 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters after California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan failed to review the names within the government’s requested timeframe.
Once election workers separate ballots from their envelopes, the government argues, identifying individual voters becomes impossible — making it critical to keep potentially ineligible ballots separate before they are counted.
