from a challenge<\/a> to the authority of Nevada\u2019s top federal prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, whom the Justice Department had designated \u201cfirst assistant\u201d U.S. attorney. With no one above her in the office, Chattah seemingly has been calling the shots on federal prosecutions in the state, handling cases referred by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\nThe Justice Department previously said it disagreed with the 9th Circuit\u2019s decision and plans to appeal it to the Supreme Court. The agency did not respond to questions about what effect the ruling could have on Essayli.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has used a similar workaround to keep Essayli running the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in L.A. without going through the Senate confirmation process, where he likely would have faced strong opposition from California\u2019s elected representatives.<\/p>\n
Essayli, 40, has continued leading the federal prosecutor\u2019s office in the Central District of California as first assistant despite a federal judge\u2019s ruling last year that said he was unlawfully serving as the acting U.S. attorney. The Justice Department did not appeal that ruling.<\/p>\n
Instead, Essayli\u2019s office has maintained that he can prosecute and supervise cases as first assistant. He also was appointed as a \u201cspecial attorney\u201d by the Trump administration, a title similarly held by Chattah in Nevada.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst Assistant Essayli may be the highest-ranking DOJ lawyer in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, and (like many in the office) he supervises others,\u201d Assistant U.S. Atty. Alexander P. Robbins said in a filing last month. \u201cBut that cannot make him a \u2018de facto\u2019 U.S. Attorney, and he does not purport to exercise \u2018all of the functions of [that] office.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Flynn and Sarsour pushed back on that claim in their motion, arguing that the government \u201cis asking this Court to accept a theory that the Ninth Circuit rejected, nearly verbatim less than three weeks ago.\u201d The government, they wrote, \u201cappears to be asking this Court to consider and approve a hypothetical delegation to Essayli of some subset of the U.S. Attorney powers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor over a year, this illegal exercise of prosecutorial powers has violated Mr. Ramirez\u2019s constitutional rights and undermined the legitimacy of the criminal justice system in this district,\u201d Flynn and Sarsour wrote. \u201cIn line with Jackson, two other Courts of Appeals have now affirmed the common-sense remedy that this illegality should be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deputy federal public defenders said a defense analysis identified invalid service as acting or de facto U.S. attorneys in at least 16 districts across the country.<\/p>\n
A former Republican member of the California state Assembly from Riverside, Essayli has used his position to act as one of Trump\u2019s fiercest legal foot soldiers. He has pursued criminal charges against protesters, activists and immigrants while dropping cases involving administration allies and supporting lawsuits challenging transgender and environmental policies in California.<\/p>\n
Essayli was sworn in as interim U.S. attorney in April 2025. Around the time he hit that role\u2019s 120-day limit, he resigned from his interim role and was allowed to continue under his current titles by then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n
Challenges to Essayli\u2019s position were brought in several criminal cases, with defense lawyers arguing that charges filed under his watch are invalid and should be dismissed. The federal public defender\u2019s office in L.A. had asked the judge to disqualify Essayli from participating in and supervising criminal prosecutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles federal public defender\u2019s office on Friday joined a renewed effort to oust Bill Essayli, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[6145,30189,1296,12,96900,383,15311,3033,47202,888,96898,96899,96901,10325,74,520,29439],"class_list":["post-216528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-trump","tag-bill-essayli","tag-charge","tag-court","tag-donald-trump","tag-first-assistant","tag-government","tag-jackson","tag-justice","tag-motion","tag-office","tag-public-defender","tag-seabright","tag-sigal-chattah","tag-southern-california","tag-trump","tag-trump-administration","tag-u-s-attorney"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117219943405013911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}