A federal judge has ruled that Bill Essayli is unlawfully serving as Los Angeles' top federal prosecutor, in a decision that bars him from two criminal cases and deepens a national fight over how the Trump administration has filled United States attorney posts without Senate confirmation. Senior United States District Judge J. Michael Seabright ruled on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, that the Justice Department could not hand Essayli the sweeping powers of a United States attorney simply by giving him the titles of special attorney and first assistant United States attorney.
The ruling is the latest courtroom setback for a White House strategy that has tried to keep handpicked prosecutors in charge well beyond the 120-day limit federal law sets for interim appointments. It does not remove Essayli from office overnight, and it does not throw out the two prosecutions at the heart of the case. But its central finding is blunt: in the judge's words, Essayli is unlawfully serving as a "de facto" United States Attorney for the Central District of California, the sprawling federal district that covers Los Angeles and Southern California.
Seabright's order targets the legal arrangement that has allowed Essayli to keep running the Central District since his interim appointment expired. Essayli, a former Republican state Assembly member from Riverside and a former federal prosecutor, was sworn in as interim United States attorney in April 2025. He was never formally nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate, the step the Constitution ordinarily requires for a United States attorney.
Federal law limits an interim appointment to 120 days. As that window neared its end, Essayli resigned from the interim post and was named a special attorney and first assistant United States attorney, a move designed to keep him in charge of the office as its acting chief. In October 2025, Seabright ruled that Essayli was no longer lawfully serving as acting United States attorney, but he allowed Essayli to continue exercising authority in those other roles.
Defence lawyers then renewed their challenge, and the legal ground shifted beneath the arrangement. In August 2026, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a similar setup for Nevada prosecutor Sigal Chattah, finding that the Justice Department could not keep an unconfirmed official in charge of a United States attorney's office simply by changing the title while handing over the full powers of the job. The department responded with a revised delegation of authority that held back three powers reserved for a Senate-confirmed United States attorney. Seabright was not persuaded.
"Withholding the three specific statutory powers mentioned in the revised designation order in reality withholds nothing," the judge wrote, according to reporting on the ruling. In his conclusion, he was equally direct: "In sum, Essayli is unlawfully serving as a 'de facto' United States Attorney."
The order bars Essayli from participating in or supervising two prosecutions whose defendants challenged his authority. Jaime Hector Ramirez is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and Tu Anh Tran is charged with possessing property stolen from interstate or foreign shipment. Seabright declined to dismiss the indictments in those cases, finding that the defendants had not shown the substantial prejudice required for that stronger remedy.
Crucially, the disqualifications will not take effect immediately. Seabright put them on hold while the government asks for a stay pending appeal. Under the timetable he accepted, prosecutors have five business days to file that request, and if he turns it down, the bar on Essayli would kick in a week later unless a higher court steps in. Essayli himself described the order as automatically stayed so the government can seek a full stay and maintain the status quo pending appeal.
The Essayli fight is part of a much wider battle over acting United States attorneys, one of the most consequential and least visible fronts in the Trump administration's second-term legal strategy. United States attorneys are the federal government's chief prosecutors in each district, deciding which cases to bring, which to decline, and how aggressively to pursue the administration's priorities. The Senate confirmation process is meant to be a check on those appointments, requiring at least some bipartisan support in most cases. Interim appointments exist for short gaps, not as a permanent workaround, which is why the 120-day limit matters.
Essayli's office has been at the centre of several of the administration's most politically charged efforts in California. He has used it to pursue protesters, activists and immigrants, according to reporting on the ruling, and on the very day of the ruling he argued in court for the administration's bid to make California set aside thousands of mail ballots that officials say may belong to noncitizens. That ballot case, heard by Judge David Carter in Los Angeles after a three-hour hearing on October 27, is itself one of the most closely watched election disputes of the final week before the November 3 midterms.
The pattern Seabright identified is not unique to Los Angeles. In New Jersey, Alina Habba stepped aside in December once appellate judges ruled her appointment invalid. In Virginia, a court found that Lindsey Halligan had been improperly installed, and the charges she brought against James Comey, the former FBI chief, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, were thrown out as a result. In Nevada, the Ninth Circuit's Chattah ruling has become the template for challenges elsewhere, and the administration has already asked the Supreme Court to review that decision.
Seabright also noted a fact that undercuts the administration's claim of necessity: the president still had not nominated anyone for the Los Angeles post. That observation matters because the Justice Department's argument, in essence, is that it needs flexibility to keep offices running while nominations are pending. If no nomination has been made at all, critics argue, the workaround looks less like a stopgap and more like a deliberate bypass of the Senate.
The hearing that led to Tuesday's ruling also showed the judge's scepticism in real time. At an October 13 hearing, Seabright questioned a September 23 order from Attorney General Todd Blanche that tried to trim Essayli's powers, asking, in effect, what the order actually changed. His written ruling answers that question: in his view, it changed nothing of substance, because the powers Essayli kept were still, taken together, the powers of the United States attorney.
The heart of Seabright's decision is a distinction between a title and a job. A first assistant United States attorney is a real and senior role, but it is not the same as the United States attorney, and the judge found that the Justice Department had blurred that line beyond recognition. By delegating Essayli authority so broad that he effectively occupied the top job, the department created what the judge called a de facto United States attorney: a prosecutor doing the job, wielding its powers and setting its direction, without ever having been confirmed to hold it.
That framing is important because it explains why the ruling stops where it does. Seabright did not order Essayli out of the building, and he did not free the two defendants. Instead, he disqualified Essayli from the two cases in which his authority was directly challenged, while leaving the indictments intact. The message is aimed at the appointment mechanism itself: the government cannot cure an unlawful acting appointment by renaming it and withholding a handful of formal powers while leaving the substance untouched.
The ruling also leaves the Justice Department a clear path to fight back. The automatic stay preserves the status quo while the government seeks a longer stay pending appeal, and the appeal itself could eventually reach the Supreme Court, where the administration has already asked the justices to weigh in on the Nevada case. If the Supreme Court takes up the Chattah dispute, its answer could settle the Essayli question and others like it across the country in a single stroke.
For now, the practical effect is narrow but symbolic. Two prosecutions must proceed without Essayli's participation or supervision once the stay lifts, unless a higher court intervenes. The broader question, whether an administration can staff the nation's top federal prosecutor posts indefinitely without Senate confirmation, remains open, and it is now headed toward the highest court in the land.
Essayli responded to the ruling on Tuesday afternoon, saying his office had expected the outcome and disputing the judge's conclusion. "We respectfully disagree with the court's order," he said in a statement. "The President and the Attorney General have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department. Importantly, today's order is automatically stayed so the government can seek a full stay and maintain the status quo pending our appeal."
He added that the question would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. "Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then," he said.
Defence attorney H. Dean Steward, who filed the renewed motion in August challenging Essayli's authority, welcomed the ruling in uncompromising terms. He called the decision "a victory for the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution," and added: "The Trump administration ignored the laws governing the appointment of U.S. Attorneys and got caught in Los Angeles. Trump and his Department of Justice violated the law again and again in an effort to install minions as chief federal prosecutors."
The Justice Department has said it intends to appeal. Its position, as reflected in Essayli's statement, is that the president and the attorney general retain broad authority to choose supervisors within the department, and that the revised delegation of authority cured any earlier defect. Seabright's ruling rejects that argument, but the appeal will test it before higher courts, including potentially the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court.
This ruling matters for three reasons. First, it strikes at the legitimacy of prosecutions brought under an unlawfully serving chief prosecutor. Even though Seabright declined to dismiss the Ramirez and Tran indictments, his finding that Essayli is a de facto United States attorney invites fresh challenges in other cases handled by the Central District, and it gives defence lawyers across the country a judicial roadmap for attacking similar appointments.
Second, it sharpens the constitutional stakes. The Appointments Clause exists to prevent exactly this kind of end-run: a president installing loyalists in powerful offices without Senate scrutiny. If the administration can keep prosecutors in place indefinitely by cycling through interim titles, the confirmation process becomes optional in practice. Seabright's ruling, together with the Ninth Circuit's Chattah decision and the rulings in New Jersey and Virginia, suggests the courts are increasingly unwilling to accept that result.
Third, the timing amplifies the impact. With the November 3 midterms less than a week away, the Central District's handling of election-related disputes, immigration enforcement and protest cases is under intense scrutiny. A ruling that its chief prosecutor is unlawfully serving does not decide any of those cases, but it colours how they are perceived, and it hands the administration's critics a court-backed argument that its prosecutorial machinery in Southern California rests on shaky legal ground.
The immediate next step is the Justice Department's request for a stay pending appeal, due within five business days of the ruling. Seabright will decide whether to grant a longer stay; if he refuses, the disqualifications would take effect a week later unless a higher court intervenes. Either way, an appeal is expected, and the case could move quickly to the Ninth Circuit.
Beyond that, all eyes will be on the Supreme Court. The administration has already asked the justices to review the Nevada Chattah decision, and Essayli has predicted that the Supreme Court will ultimately decide his case too. A Supreme Court ruling on whether title changes can cure an expired interim appointment would resolve not only Essayli's fate but the status of similarly situated prosecutors nationwide.
Meanwhile, the Central District's work continues under the stay, with Essayli still in his current role for now. The Ramirez and Tran prosecutions will proceed, but without his participation or supervision once the disqualifications bite, if they do. And the question Seabright raised in passing, why no nominee has been put forward for the Los Angeles post at all, is likely to grow louder with each passing week.
Bill Essayli is a former Republican state Assembly member from Riverside and a former federal prosecutor who has led federal prosecutions in Los Angeles and Southern California as the Trump administration's pick for the Central District of California since April 2025.
Senior United States District Judge J. Michael Seabright ruled that Essayli is unlawfully serving as a "de facto" United States Attorney and barred him from participating in or supervising the prosecutions of Jaime Hector Ramirez and Tu Anh Tran.
No. Seabright declined to dismiss the indictments, finding that the defendants had not shown the substantial prejudice required for dismissal. The cases continue, but without Essayli's involvement once the disqualifications take effect.
No. The disqualifications are automatically stayed while the Justice Department seeks a stay pending appeal, and Essayli has said he looks forward to serving in his current role until the Supreme Court decides the question.
Prosecutors have five business days to seek a stay pending appeal. If the judge refuses, the bar takes effect a week later unless a higher court steps in, and an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, and potentially the Supreme Court, is expected.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Supreme Court Immigration Judges Lose Power to Pause Deportation Cases, California Ballots Hearing: Judge Questions DOJ Bid to Block 20,000 Votes, and DOJ Charges Green Card Holders With Illegal Voting in 5 States Ahead of Midterms.
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