President Donald Trump is intensifying his campaign over California’s election procedures, condemning a federal court’s decision to reject his administration’s attempt to set aside about 20,000 ballots linked to people suspected of being noncitizens. At the same time, he praised Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor.
Trump addressed the issue Saturday in a Truth Social post following several legal defeats for the Justice Department. He described First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli as one of the nation’s greatest prosecutors and accused the court of blocking an effort to address what he called election fraud.
The president also pledged to keep pursuing the election-integrity dispute in California, where questions surrounding voter registrations have emerged as a major political flashpoint days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
In the lengthy post, Trump criticized both the court’s ruling and the Senate confirmation procedure that has affected Essayli’s status. He singled out the Senate’s so-called blue-slip process, labeling it a “SCAM.”
Trump called Essayli “one of the best, EVER!” and claimed the prosecutor had identified a substantial number of illegal votes—possibly numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
“So, in Los Angeles, our Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California (and various other titles which were forced upon us by the ridiculous Blue Slip SCAM where nobody can get confirmed without the Dumocrats’ approval — which is IMPOSSIBLE to get in that they are all Trump Deranged Lunatics!), Bill Essayli, has done a fantastic job,” Trump wrote.
“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 said the ruling also brought to mind his failed legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election, asserting that the Supreme Court declined to take up one case because he did not have standing.
“We are going to continue our yearslong fight on Election Integrity,” Trump wrote in closing.
His remarks followed Friday’s decision by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to deny the Justice Department’s emergency request to compel California election officials to segregate ballots associated with approximately 20,000 people the administration believes may not be US citizens.
The 2-1 ruling affirmed a lower court’s decision against the administration. The appeals panel said there was no workable method for identifying and isolating the ballots without risking disruption to California’s broader election system.
Federal officials have maintained that they found more than 20,000 likely noncitizens on California’s voter rolls and argued that ballots connected to those registrations should be held until the individuals’ citizenship could be confirmed.
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The Justice Department filed suit after California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan refused to review the names on the timeline demanded by federal officials.
US District Judge David O. Carter rejected the emergency request Wednesday, cautioning that separating the ballots could interfere with the election and disenfranchise eligible voters.
The appellate ruling represents another setback for Trump’s effort to intervene in California’s election administration before Tuesday’s midterms. One judge dissented, arguing that the state’s refusal to segregate the ballots hindered federal efforts to prevent unlawful voting.
Essayli has emerged as a key participant in the administration’s clash with California over the disputed voter list.
Last week, he warned that voters who might be ineligible could already be casting ballots as election officials processed mail-in voting 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.”
Essayli further argued that each day California continued counting ballots without verifying the contested registrations increased the risk that valid votes would be compromised.
“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.”
Trump’s public defense of Essayli comes as the prosecutor faces a separate legal fight over whether he can lawfully continue running the Central District of California‘s US attorney’s office.
Senior US District Judge J. Michael Seabright ruled Tuesday that Essayli was unlawfully serving as a de facto US attorney, finding that the Trump administration could not sidestep federal appointment requirements by giving him successive titles and delegating the powers of the top prosecutor.
The ruling bars Essayli from participating in or supervising two criminal prosecutions, although Seabright delayed the order while the government pursues a stay pending appeal. The judge 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 fight the ruling, saying the issue will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.