{"id":897039,"date":"2026-10-28T02:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T02:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897039\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T02:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T02:32:09","slug":"federal-judge-disqualifies-trump-appointed-prosecutor-for-unlawfully-serving-in-role-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/897039\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge disqualifies Trump-appointed prosecutor for \u2018unlawfully serving\u2019 in role | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A US judge ruled on Tuesday that Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in southern California<\/a>, was \u201cunlawfully serving\u201d as the head of the US attorney\u2019s office and was disqualified from overseeing two criminal prosecutions.<\/p>\n

The order, however, will not immediately go into effect, and the Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it intends to appeal.<\/p>\n

The ruling was part of a long-running legal battle challenging the Trump administration\u2019s maneuvers to keep Essayli in office despite not being confirmed by the US Senate. Essayli, a former Republican state lawmaker and ally of Donald Trump, became an interim US attorney in April 2025, but he was not formally nominated by the president, which allowed him to lead the office without going through the standard confirmation process.<\/p>\n

After Essayli\u2019s \u201cinterim\u201d appointment ended last July, the Trump administration gave him an \u201cacting\u201d title, then kept him on as a \u201cfirst assistant\u201d after a judge ruled he was unlawfully serving as US attorney. But in August, a federal appellate court ruled<\/a> against a Nevada justice department leader in a similar case, and the judge overseeing Essayli\u2019s case cited that higher court\u2019s ruling on Tuesday, issuing another order saying he was still acting unlawfully.<\/p>\n

Michael Seabright, the federal judge, said Essayli was illegally serving, even with a \u201cspecial attorney\u201d and \u201cfirst assistant\u201d designation by the Trump administration, and the judge said he could no longer participate in or supervise two ongoing prosecutions where the attorneys had challenged his position.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respectfully disagree with the court\u2019s order,\u201d Essayli said in a statement on Tuesday. \u201cThe President and the Attorney General have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

H Dean Steward, a defense lawyer who challenged Essayli\u2019s position, called the decision a \u201cvictory for the rule of law and the US constitution\u201d in a statement to the LA Times<\/a>, saying: \u201cThe Trump administration ignored the laws governing the appointment of US 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alina Habba, Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer, was similarly disqualified from the top prosecutor job in New Jersey in December, though she stayed on as a senior adviser at the justice department.<\/p>\n

Over the last year, Essayli has made headlines by bringing forward cases that align with the Maga agenda, aggressively targeting immigrants for deportations and prosecuting protesters. Most recently, Essayli has launched a campaign<\/a> against \u201cvoter fraud\u201d, alleging that thousands of registered voters in California are \u201clikely non-citizens\u201d and pushing for their ballots to be set aside \u2013 efforts that state election officials have forcefully opposed<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US judge ruled on Tuesday that Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in southern California, was \u201cunlawfully…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-897039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}