Federal judge rules top US prosecutor in Los Angeles isn’t legally serving

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles.

The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.

Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote.

The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. Essayli said he doesn’t agree with the court’s order. He said the president and Attorney General “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”

“Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then,” he said in a statement.

The former state lawmaker was appointed by the Trump administration last year to serve as Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles. Just before the 120-day mark, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him as First Assistant U.S. Attorney.

But in October 2025, Seabright disqualified Essayli from overseeing several criminal cases, concluding he had stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law. He was allowed to continue to serve as a First Assistant U.S. attorney.

The administration never appointed another acting U.S. attorney, effectively making Essayli the top prosecutor. He’s been a face of the administration’s sparring with California on everything from alleged health care fraud to recent claims of widespread noncitizen voting. California has pushed back on federal efforts to prevent election officials from counting ballots of up to 20,000 people the Trump administration suspects are not U.S. citizens.

On Tuesday, Seabright wrote that Essayli’s status faced new questions following an August appeals court ruling in a similar case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Sigal Chattah, the Trump administration’s initial pick for U.S. attorney in Nevada, was unlawfully appointed to lead federal prosecutions in the state.

Seabright wrote that Bondi’s appointment of Essayli as a special attorney and designation of him as the FAUSA “is identical” to her appointment of Chattah in the same roles.

Despite a new designation by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche that cut a few of Essayli’s duties, the judge said that “nothing in the revised designation order materially distinguishes it from the Chattah designation order deemed improper in” the appeals court ruling.

Judges have found a number of interim U.S. attorneys installed by the administration are unlawfully serving in their positions.

A judge in New Jersey last year disqualified acting U.S. attorney Alina Habba and in January a judge ruled that John Sarcone was not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.

Essayli is a former federal prosecutor and Republican state lawmaker. In the Legislature, he took up conservative causes and criticized the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. He has been outspoken against California policies to protect immigrants living in the country illegally, and he has aggressively prosecuted people who protest Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement across Southern California.