Los Angeles federal prosecutor Bill Essayli is urging California officials to use a federal citizenship database to verify voter eligibility, after an appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to segregate about 20,000 ballots linked 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 said 34 other states already use the database to review voter eligibility and argued that California could promptly submit its unredacted voter rolls for examination.
“California has raised no issues with this database for Medi-Cal, so why not use it to check voter eligibility,” he wrote.
Essayli stressed that both state and federal law prohibit noncitizens from voting. He said reviewing the rolls could help restore public confidence in election results.
“What is California afraid of?” he asked.
His remarks followed Friday’s decision by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court ruling that rejected the Justice Department’s emergency request to separate the disputed ballots.
In a 2–1 decision, the appeals court said separating the ballots could disrupt Tuesday’s midterm elections and potentially prevent eligible voters from having their ballots counted.
Trump also condemned the ruling Saturday in a Truth Social post, defending Essayli and accusing the court of obstructing 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 attacked the Senate’s blue-slip process, which gives senators a role in weighing nominees from their states and has complicated Essayli’s effort to become a Senate-confirmed US attorney.
“We are going to continue our yearslong fight on Election Integrity,” Trump concluded.
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The Justice Department has said federal officials identified more than 20,000 likely noncitizens registered to vote in California. The allegations, however, do not establish 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 meet federal demands to review the disputed registrations within the requested deadline.
US District Judge David O. Carter rejected the administration’s emergency request Wednesday, warning that the move could disrupt the election and disenfranchise eligible voters.
One judge on the appeals court dissented from Friday’s decision, arguing that California’s refusal to separate the ballots hindered federal efforts to prevent illegal voting.
Last week, Essayli warned that potentially ineligible voters could already be casting ballots as election workers processed mail-in votes throughout 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 backing of Essayli comes as the prosecutor faces a separate legal challenge 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. The judge found that the Trump administration could not circumvent federal appointment requirements by giving Essayli successive titles and delegating the powers of the office’s top prosecutor.
The ruling prevents Essayli from participating in or supervising two criminal prosecutions, although the judge delayed enforcement while the government seeks 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, enabling him to continue running the office without a Senate-confirmed replacement.
Essayli has vowed to appeal the ruling, saying the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the dispute.
