Seabright finds Essayli's federal titles mirror Chattah's unlawful appointment

Essayli disputes the ruling and says the Supreme Court will decide

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright ruled Tuesday that Republican Bill Essayli is unlawfully serving as the de facto U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles. The order will not take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal.

Seabright wrote that Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney.” He said Essayli’s status raised new questions following an August ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court 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 then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appointment of Essayli as a special attorney and his designation as First Assistant U.S. Attorney “is identical” to her appointment of Chattah in the same roles.

A new designation by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche cut a few of Essayli’s duties. Seabright nevertheless found that nothing in the revised order materially distinguished it from the Chattah designation order that the appeals court had deemed improper.

The administration’s strategy of extending handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law now faces another judicial obstacle. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate, a process that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.

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. Just before the 120-day mark, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him First Assistant U.S. Attorney. The administration never appointed another acting U.S. attorney, effectively making Essayli the district’s top prosecutor.

In October 2025, Seabright disqualified Essayli from overseeing several criminal cases, concluding that he had stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law. Essayli was allowed to continue serving as First Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Judges have found a number of interim U.S. attorneys installed by the administration to be 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 has been a face of the administration’s sparring with California, from alleged health care fraud to the administration’s 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.

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

Essayli rejected the ruling and said the president and attorney general “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.” He also said in a statement, “Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then.”