The top U.S. attorney in one of the largest districts in the country has been serving illegally since July, according to a federal judge.
The ruling marks the third time that a court has disqualified one of Donald Trump’s loyalists for a top prosecutor role, as the Department of Justice faces intense legal scrutiny over a series of maneuvers to keep the president’s allies in office to get around legal limits on how long they can stay there.
In his Tuesday order, District Judge J. Michael Seabright determined that Bill Essayli was unlawfully serving beyond a 120-day expiration date for a temporary position leading the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of California. He should have left his post as acting U.S. attorney for the district July 31, according to the judge.
But Seabright said Essayli could remain on the job with the title of “first assistant” U.S. attorney, allowing him to continue overseeing prosecutions if no one else is appointed to the role — which the judge acknowledged, in practical terms, wouldn’t change much in terms of who is leading the office in the most populous district in the nation.
“Nothing is changing,” Essayli wrote on X, declaring victory in the case. “I continue serving as the top federal prosecutor in the Central District of California.”
However, Seabright’s decision is the latest in a string of legal blows for the president’s loyalists who have held on to critical law enforcement roles through a complex set of bureaucratic maneuvers that have allowed them to evade a Senate confirmation process.
Judges have disqualified Trump’s personal attorney Alina Habba from serving as U.S. attorney in New Jersey as well as Sigal Chattah, Trump’s nominee for top prosecutor in Nevada. Both of those decisions have been temporarily frozen to allow the Justice Department time to appeal.
Trump’s acting U.S. attorney for New Mexico, Ryan Ellison, is also expected to face a similar legal challenge.
Attorneys for former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are similarly calling on judges to throw out the politically charged criminal indictments against them by arguing that Lindsey Halligan — another one of Trump’s personal attorneys — is illegally serving as the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Essayli to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, covering an area with roughly 20 million people. By law, he was serving on an interim basis for up to 120 days. Without Senate confirmation by the end of that period, federal judges can then appoint their own acting prosecutor.
But Essayli was signaling that he didn’t have any plans to leave the office.
“We’ve got some tricks up our sleeves,” he told right-wing media personality Glenn Beck at the time.
Days before his deadline, Essayli resigned — only for Bondi to appoint him as the office’s No. 2 position, following a similar strategy the Trump administration deployed to keep other top prosecutors in office.
The administration has argued they could essentially inherit the top role of U.S. attorney on an acting basis because they were no longer serving in them.
Seabright, echoing other judges presiding over similar challenges, rejected that argument.
“Simply stated: Essayli unlawfully assumed the role of Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California,” Seabright concluded. “Essayli may not perform the functions and duties of the United States Attorney … He is disqualified from serving in that role.”
But the cases brought by Essayli’s office while he was illegally serving won’t be dismissed, according to Seabright.
Those indictments were signed by other, legally appointed prosecutors, the judge determined.
But if that reasoning holds up in other cases, it could spell doom for the criminal cases against Comey and James, whose indictments were signed off by Halligan. She presented evidence to grand juries by herself to secure those indictments.
A judge is scheduled to hear arguments over attempts to disqualify Halligan from office November 13.
