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Tag: top federal prosecutor

  • Trump officials have tried to justify ICE shootings. Is it backfiring in court?

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    Just a few hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that said, without evidence, that the 37-year-old registered nurse “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would later imply Pretti had been “asked to show up and to continue to resist” by Minnesota’s governor.

    Multiple videos from the scene immediately undercut those claims, and there has been no indication in the days since that Pretti threatened or planned to hurt law enforcement.

    Several high-profile use-of-force incidents and arrests involving federal immigration agents have involved a similar cycle: Strident statements by Trump administration officials, soon contradicted by video footage or other evidence. Some law enforcement experts believe the repeated falsehoods are harming federal authorities both in the public eye and in the courtroom.

    The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has taken five defendants to trial on charges of assaulting officers — and his office has lost each case. Court records and a Times investigation show grand juries in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have repeatedly rejected criminal filings from prosecutors in similar cases.

    Despite the repeated judicial rebukes, administration officials have continued to push for criminal charges against people at protest scenes, including the controversial arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon on Friday.

    “When top federal law enforcement leaders in the country push false narratives like this, it leads the public to question everything the government says going forward,” said Peter Carr, a former Justice Department spokesman in Washington who served in Democratic and Republican administrations. “You see that in how judges are reacting. You’re seeing that in how grand juries are reacting. You’re seeing that in how juries are reacting. That trust that has been built up over generations is gone.”

    The credibility concerns played out in a downtown L.A. courtroom in September, when Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino served as the key witness in the assault trial of Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of striking a Border Patrol agent during protests against immigration raids last summer. Video from the scene did not clearly capture the alleged attack, and Bovino was the only Border Patrol official who testified as an eyewitness.

    Under questioning from federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega, Bovino initially denied he had been disciplined by Border Patrol for calling undocumented immigrants “scum, filth and trash,” but later admitted he had received a reprimand. The jury came back with an acquittal after deliberating for about an hour. A juror who spoke to The Times outside court said Bovino’s testimony detailing his account of the alleged assault had “no impact” on their decision.

    Last year, a Chicago judge ruled Bovino had “lied” in a deposition in a lawsuit over the way agents used force against protesters and journalists.

    Spokespersons for Essayli and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

    Essayli’s prosecutors have seen four additional cases involving allegations of assault on a federal officer end in acquittals, a nearly unheard of losing streak. A Pew study found fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted throughout the U.S. in 2022.

    “The credibility of the prosecutor’s office and the credibility of the law enforcement officers testifying is key,” said Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in L.A. who is now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg. “That is especially true when the only witness to an event is a law enforcement officer.”

    Jon Fleischman, a veteran Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said federal law enforcement officials have a responsibility to be the “mature, responsible player in the room” and remain as apolitical as possible. While he is a firm supporter of President Trump’s immigration agenda and said the Biden administration shares some blame for politicizing federal law enforcement, Noem’s handling of Pretti’s killing was problematic.

    “What she said really doesn’t bear out in terms of what the facts that are available tell us,” Fleischman said. “I think it undermines the credibility of the justice system.”

    Fleischman added that he feared some of the government’s recent missteps could dull approval of the platform that twice carried Trump to the White House.

    “One of the main reasons I’ve been so enthusiastic about this president has been his stance on immigration issues,” he said. “When you see unforced errors by the home team that reduce public support for the president’s immigration agenda, it’s demoralizing.”

    Another top Trump aide, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, also spoke out after the Minnesota shooting, calling Pretti an “assassin.”

    Responding to a Times reporter on X, Miller said recent legal defeats in Los Angeles were the result of “mass judge and jury nullification, deep in blue territory, of slam-dunk assault cases.”

    Accounts from inside L.A. courtrooms paint a different picture.

    Carol Williams, a jury foreperson in the most recent assault trial which federal prosecutors lost in L.A., said the people she served with steered clear of conversations about the news or ICE raids.

    “We didn’t talk about the protests in L.A. and we didn’t talk about the protests that were in Minnesota or anything,” Williams said. “People, I’m sure, probably keep up with the news, but in terms of bringing that into the jury room, we did not.”

    Last year, Essayli and Tricia McLaughlin, the chief Homeland Security spokesperson, accused Carlitos Ricardo Parias of ramming immigration agents with his vehicle in South L.A., causing an agent to open fire. Video made public after the assault charges were dismissed last year, however, do not show the vehicle moving when the ICE agent opens fire, injuring Parias and a deputy U.S. marshal.

    After being presented with the body-camera footage, McLaughlin reiterated the claim that Parias weaponized his vehicle and said officers “followed their training and fired defensive shots.”

    McLaughlin also labeled Keith Porter Jr. — a Los Angeles man shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve — an “active shooter” in initial media comments about the case, using a term that typically refers to a gunman attempting to kill multiple people.

    Los Angeles police said nobody else was injured at the scene and have not used the “active shooter” wording in statements about the case.

    Porter’s family and advocates have argued that force was not warranted. They said Porter was firing a gun in the air to celebrate the new year, behavior that is illegal and discouraged as dangerous by public officials.

    A lawyer for the agent, Brian Palacios, has said there is evidence Porter shot at the agent.

    Carr, the former Justice Department spokesman, said the Trump administration has broken with years of cautious norms around press statements that were designed to protect the credibility of federal law enforcement.

    “That trust is eroded when they rush to push narratives before any real investigations take place,” he said.

    In one case, the refusal of Homeland Security officials to back down may cause video footage that further undercuts their narrative to become public.

    Last October, Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago who alleged she was following him in a car and interfering with an operation. In a statement, McLaughlin accused Martinez of ramming a law enforcement vehicle while armed with a “semiautomatic weapon.”

    Federal prosecutors in Chicago dropped the charges, but McLaughlin and others continued to describe Martinez as a “domestic terrorist.” As a result, Martinez filed a motion to revoke a protective order that has kept hidden video of the incident and other evidence.

    “While the United States voluntarily dismissed its formal prosecution of her with prejudice … government officials continue to prosecute Ms. Martinez’s character in the court of public opinion,” the motion read.

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    James Queally, Brittny Mejia

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  • Department of Justice releases limited set of files tied to Epstein sex trafficking investigation

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    The Justice Department released thousands of files Friday about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the incomplete document dump did not break significant ground about the long-running criminal investigations of the financier or his ties to wealthy and powerful individuals.The files included photographs of famous people who spent time with Epstein in the years before he came under suspicion, including some candid snapshots of Bill Clinton, who flew on Epstein’s jet and invited him to the White House in the years before the financier was accused of wrongdoing. But there was almost no material related to another old Epstein friend, President Donald Trump, aside from a few well-known images, sparing the White House from having to confront fresh questions about the relationship between Trump and Epstein.Links to the documents can be found here: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. The records, consisting largely of pictures but also including call logs, grand jury testimony, interview transcripts and other documents, arrived amid extraordinary anticipation that they might offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades’ worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Yet the release, replete with redactions, seemed unlikely to satisfy the clamor for information, given how many records had yet to be released and because some of the materials had already been made public.Democrats and some Republicans seized on the limited release to accuse the Justice Department of failing to meet a congressionally set deadline to produce the files, while White House officials on social media gleefully promoted a photo of Clinton in a hot tub with a woman with a blacked-out face. The Trump administration touted the release as proof of its commitment to transparency, ignoring that the Justice Department just months ago said no more files would be released. Congress then passed a law mandating it.In a letter to Congress, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that the Justice Department was continuing to review files in its possession, was withholding some documents under exemptions meant to protect victims and expected additional disclosures by the end of the year. Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling-out, tried for months to keep the records sealed.But bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump last month signed a bill giving the Justice Department 30 days to release most of its files and communications related to Epstein, including information about the investigation into his death in a federal jail. The law set a deadline for Friday.Limited details about TrumpTrump is hardly glimpsed in the files, with the small number of photos of him appearing to have been in the public domain for decades. Those include two in which Trump and Epstein are posing with now-first lady Melania Trump in February 2000 at an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort.Trump’s connection to Epstein is well-documented, but he has sought to distance himself from his former friend. He has said he cut off ties with Epstein after the financier hired young female employees from Mar-a-Lago and has repeatedly denied knowledge of his crimes.The FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced in July that they would not be releasing any additional records, a decision that was supported by Trump. But the president reversed course once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the Republican agenda and releasing the records was the best way to move on.The White House, meanwhile, has moved to shift focus away from Trump’s ties to Epstein, with Attorney General Pam Bondi last month saying that she had ordered a federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s connections to Trump’s political foes, including Clinton.Neither Trump nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in the files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.Among other prominent Epstein contacts is the former Prince Andrew, who appears in a photograph released Friday wearing a tuxedo and lying on the laps of what appear to be several women who are seated, dressed in formalwear. Pop star Michael Jackson also appears in multiple photos, including one showing him standing next to a smiling Epstein.New photos of ClintonUnlike Trump, Clinton is featured prominently in the files, though the records included no explanation of how the photographs of the former president related to any investigation or the context surrounding them.Some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another shows him in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was also redacted. He is also seen in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.Senior Trump White House aides took to X to promote the Clinton photos.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote “Oh my!” and added a shocked face emoji in response to a photo of Clinton in the hot tub.“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said in a statement.“There are two types of people here,” he said. “The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships after that. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”The Epstein investigationsAfter nearly two decades of court action, a voluminous number of Epstein records had already been public before Friday, including flight logs, address books, email correspondence, police reports, grand jury records, courtroom testimony and deposition transcripts.Besides public curiosity about whether any of Epstein’s associates knew about or participated in the abuse, Epstein’s accusers have also sought answers about why federal authorities shut down their initial investigation into the allegations in 2008.“Just put out the files,” said Marina Lacerda, who says she survived sexual assault by Epstein. “And stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted.”One of the few revelations in the documents was a copy of the earliest known concern about Epstein’s behavior — a report taken by the FBI of a woman in 1996 who believed photos and negatives she had taken of her 12-year-old and 16-year-old sisters for a personal art project had been stolen by Epstein. The documents don’t show what, if anything, the agency did with that complaint.Police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported being molested at his mansion. The FBI joined the investigation. Authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they’d been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.Ultimately, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.Epstein’s accusers spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside. One of those women, Virginia Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with other men, including billionaires, famous academics, politicians and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Britain’s Prince Andrew.Mountbatten-Windsor denied ever having sex with Giuffre, but King Charles III stripped him of his royal titles this year.Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Giuffre’s claims, but her account fueled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Giuffre died by suicide in April.Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Maxwell, his longtime confidant, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse. She was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

    WASHINGTON —

    The Justice Department released thousands of files Friday about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the incomplete document dump did not break significant ground about the long-running criminal investigations of the financier or his ties to wealthy and powerful individuals.

    The files included photographs of famous people who spent time with Epstein in the years before he came under suspicion, including some candid snapshots of Bill Clinton, who flew on Epstein’s jet and invited him to the White House in the years before the financier was accused of wrongdoing. But there was almost no material related to another old Epstein friend, President Donald Trump, aside from a few well-known images, sparing the White House from having to confront fresh questions about the relationship between Trump and Epstein.

    Links to the documents can be found here: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

    The records, consisting largely of pictures but also including call logs, grand jury testimony, interview transcripts and other documents, arrived amid extraordinary anticipation that they might offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades’ worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Yet the release, replete with redactions, seemed unlikely to satisfy the clamor for information, given how many records had yet to be released and because some of the materials had already been made public.

    Democrats and some Republicans seized on the limited release to accuse the Justice Department of failing to meet a congressionally set deadline to produce the files, while White House officials on social media gleefully promoted a photo of Clinton in a hot tub with a woman with a blacked-out face. The Trump administration touted the release as proof of its commitment to transparency, ignoring that the Justice Department just months ago said no more files would be released. Congress then passed a law mandating it.

    In a letter to Congress, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that the Justice Department was continuing to review files in its possession, was withholding some documents under exemptions meant to protect victims and expected additional disclosures by the end of the year.

    Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling-out, tried for months to keep the records sealed.

    But bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump last month signed a bill giving the Justice Department 30 days to release most of its files and communications related to Epstein, including information about the investigation into his death in a federal jail. The law set a deadline for Friday.

    Limited details about Trump

    Trump is hardly glimpsed in the files, with the small number of photos of him appearing to have been in the public domain for decades. Those include two in which Trump and Epstein are posing with now-first lady Melania Trump in February 2000 at an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

    Trump’s connection to Epstein is well-documented, but he has sought to distance himself from his former friend. He has said he cut off ties with Epstein after the financier hired young female employees from Mar-a-Lago and has repeatedly denied knowledge of his crimes.

    The FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced in July that they would not be releasing any additional records, a decision that was supported by Trump. But the president reversed course once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the Republican agenda and releasing the records was the best way to move on.

    The White House, meanwhile, has moved to shift focus away from Trump’s ties to Epstein, with Attorney General Pam Bondi last month saying that she had ordered a federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s connections to Trump’s political foes, including Clinton.

    Neither Trump nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in the files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.

    Among other prominent Epstein contacts is the former Prince Andrew, who appears in a photograph released Friday wearing a tuxedo and lying on the laps of what appear to be several women who are seated, dressed in formalwear. Pop star Michael Jackson also appears in multiple photos, including one showing him standing next to a smiling Epstein.

    New photos of Clinton

    Unlike Trump, Clinton is featured prominently in the files, though the records included no explanation of how the photographs of the former president related to any investigation or the context surrounding them.

    Some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another shows him in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was also redacted. He is also seen in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.

    Senior Trump White House aides took to X to promote the Clinton photos.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote “Oh my!” and added a shocked face emoji in response to a photo of Clinton in the hot tub.

    “They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said in a statement.

    “There are two types of people here,” he said. “The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships after that. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”

    The Epstein investigations

    After nearly two decades of court action, a voluminous number of Epstein records had already been public before Friday, including flight logs, address books, email correspondence, police reports, grand jury records, courtroom testimony and deposition transcripts.

    Besides public curiosity about whether any of Epstein’s associates knew about or participated in the abuse, Epstein’s accusers have also sought answers about why federal authorities shut down their initial investigation into the allegations in 2008.

    “Just put out the files,” said Marina Lacerda, who says she survived sexual assault by Epstein. “And stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted.”

    One of the few revelations in the documents was a copy of the earliest known concern about Epstein’s behavior — a report taken by the FBI of a woman in 1996 who believed photos and negatives she had taken of her 12-year-old and 16-year-old sisters for a personal art project had been stolen by Epstein. The documents don’t show what, if anything, the agency did with that complaint.

    Police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported being molested at his mansion. The FBI joined the investigation. Authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they’d been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.

    Ultimately, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

    Epstein’s accusers spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside. One of those women, Virginia Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with other men, including billionaires, famous academics, politicians and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Britain’s Prince Andrew.

    Mountbatten-Windsor denied ever having sex with Giuffre, but King Charles III stripped him of his royal titles this year.

    Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Giuffre’s claims, but her account fueled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Giuffre died by suicide in April.

    Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Maxwell, his longtime confidant, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse. She was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

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  • Trump’s top federal prosecutor in L.A. faces challenge over ‘acting’ status

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    A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday to decide whether maneuvers used by the Trump administration to install Bill Essayli as acting United States attorney in Los Angeles are improper — and, if so, what should be done about it.

    During a Tuesday hearing in downtown L.A., Senior Judge J. Michael Seabright — who flew in from Hawaii for the proceeding — wondered how to proceed after defense attorneys sought to dismiss indictments against three clients and to disqualify Essayli “from participating in criminal prosecutions in this district.”

    Essayli, a former Riverside County assemblyman, was appointed as the region’s interim top federal prosecutor by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April.

    His term was set to expire in late July unless he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate or a panel of federal judges. But the White House never moved to nominate him to a permanent role, instead opting to use an unprecedented legal maneuver to shift his title to “acting,” extending his term for an additional nine months without any confirmation process.

    Seabright was selected from the District of Hawaii after L.A.’s federal judges recused themselves from the proceedings. He questioned the consequences of dismissing any charges over Essayli’s title.

    “If I did this for your client, I’ll have to do it for every single defendant who was indicted when Mr. Essayli was acting under the rubric of acting U.S. attorney, correct?” Seabright said to a deputy federal public defender.

    “I don’t think you will,” replied James A. Flynn. “This is a time-specific, case-specific analysis and the court doesn’t need to go so far as to decide that a dismissal would be appropriate in all cases.”

    “Why not? You’re asking for a really draconian remedy here,” Seabright said, before questioning how many indictments had been made since Essayli was designated acting U.S. attorney at the end of July.

    “203, your honor,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Alexander P. Robbins responded.

    In a court filing ahead of the hearing Tuesday, lawyers bringing the challenge against Essayli called the government’s defense of his status a handbook for circumventing the protections that the Constitution and Congress built against the limitless, unaccountable handpicking of temporary officials.”

    During the nearly two-hour hearing, Flynn cited similar legal challenges that have played out elsewhere. A federal judge ruled in August that Alina Habba has been illegally occupying the U.S. attorney post in New Jersey, although that order was put on hold pending appeal. Last month, a federal judge disqualified Nevada’s top federal prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, from several cases, concluding she “is not validly serving as acting U.S. attorney.”

    The judges who ruled on the Nevada and New Jersey cases did not dismiss the charges against defendants, instead ordering that those cases not be supervised by Habba or Chattah.

    Flynn argued that the remedies in other states “have not been effective to deter the conduct.”

    “This court has the benefit of additional weeks and has seen the government’s response to that determination that their appointments were illegal and I submit the government hasn’t gotten the message,” Flynn said.

    Flynn said another option could be a dismissal without prejudice, which means the government could bring the case against their clients again. He called it a “weaker medicine” than dismissal with prejudice, “but would be a stronger one than offered in New Jersey and Nevada.”

    The hearing grew testy at times, with Seabright demanding that Assistant U.S. Atty. Robbins tell him when Essayli’s term will end. Robbins told the judge the government believes it will end on Feb. 24 and that afterward the role of acting U.S. attorney will remain vacant.

    Robbins noted that Essayli has also been designated as first assistant U.S. attorney, essentially allowing him to remain in charge of the office if he loses the “acting” title.

    Bondi in July also appointed him as a “special attorney.” Robbins told the judge that “there’s no developed challenge to Mr. Essayli’s appointment as a special attorney or his designation as a first assistant.”

    “The defense challenge here, the stated interest that they have, is Bill Essayli cannot be acting,” Robbins said. “But they don’t have a compelling or strong response to Bill Essayli is legitimately in the office and he can be the first assistant … he can supervise other people in the office.”

    Seabright asked both sides to brief him by Thursday on “whatever hats you believe [Essayli’s] wearing now” and “whether I were to say he wasn’t legitimately made acting U.S. attorney … what hats does he continue to wear.”

    “If I understand the government’s proposed remedy correctly … it would essentially be no remedy at all, because they would be re-creating Mr. Essayli as the acting United States attorney, he’d just be wearing a first assistant hat,” Flynn said.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    When asked by a Times reporter last month about the motion to disqualify him, Essayli said “the president won the election.”

    “The American people provided him a mandate to run the executive branch, including the U.S. attorney’s office and I look forward to serving at the pleasure of the president,” he said during a news conference.

    Since taking office, Essayli has doggedly pursued Trump’s agenda, championing hard-line immigration enforcement in Southern California, often using the president’s language verbatim at news conferences. His tenure has sparked discord in the office, with dozens of prosecutors quitting.

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    Brittny Mejia

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  • Public defender’s office seeks removal of Trump’s top federal prosecutor in L.A.

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    The federal public defender’s office in Los Angeles filed a motion Friday to disqualify acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, arguing that the Trump administration’s pick to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Southern California is unlawfully occupying his post.

    Essayli, a former Riverside County assemblyman, was appointed by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April, and his term was set to expire in late July unless he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate or a panel of federal judges. But the White House never moved to nominate him to a permanent role, instead opting to use an unprecedented legal maneuver to shift his title to “acting,” extending his term another nine months without any confirmation process.

    The federal public defender’s office filed a motion seeking to dismiss an indictment against their client and to disqualify Essayli and attorneys working under him “from participating in criminal prosecutions in this district.”

    The defendant, Jaime Ramirez, was indicted on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

    In a 63-page motion filed in Ramirez’s case, James Anglin Flynn and Ayah A. Sarsour, deputy federal public defenders, argued that the Trump administration circumvented limitations that Congress has imposed on temporary service in key offices, including U.S. attorneys.

    Essayli’s term was supposed to expire on July 29. At that point the White House had not formally nominated him before the U.S. Senate, and local federal judges had taken no action to confirm Essayli, or anyone else, to the position. At the eleventh hour, the White House named Essayli as acting U.S. attorney, allowing him to hold the post for 210 more days without confirmation hearings.

    Essayli “was not lawfully acting as the United States Attorney in any capacity” on Aug. 13, when the government obtained the indictment against Ramirez, the deputy federal public defenders wrote in their motion. “And he has no such lawful authority today.”

    The U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

    In their motion, Flynn and Sarsour pointed out that the Trump administration has used similar strategies to keep political allies in power in U.S. attorney’s offices in New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico and the Northern District of New York. But legal challenges are mounting. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Alina Habba has been illegally occupying her seat in New Jersey since early July, although that order was put on hold pending appeal.

    Habba was nominated for the post earlier this year but did not receive Senate or judicial confirmation. Instead, local federal judges chose Desiree Leigh Grace, a veteran Republican prosecutor within the office, to replace Habba. Bondi responded by firing Grace and naming Habba acting U.S. attorney, sparking confusion over who actually held the post and all but paralyzing the federal criminal court system in the Garden State.

    On Tuesday, the federal public defender’s office in Nevada filed a motion to do one of two things: dismiss an indictment that acting U.S. Atty. Sigal Chattah brought against one of its clients, or disqualify the U.S. attorney’s office entirely. The 59-page motion specifically challenged Chattah, stating that she is not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney.

    Echoing Judge Matthew W. Brann’s ruling on Habba, the Nevada public defenders argued that Chattah was not first an assistant U.S. attorney, as federal law required when the U.S. attorney seat became vacant.

    The motion also argues that Chattah was illegally kept in office past the 120-day limit and can’t exercise the powers of the office without Senate confirmation.

    “The Court should dismiss the indictment; at a minimum, it should disqualify Ms. Chattah from this prosecution, as well as attorneys operating under her direction; and the judges of this district should exercise their authority to appoint a proper interim U.S. Attorney,” the Nevada motion read.

    Last month, in the final days before Chattah’s interim appointment ended, more than 100 retired state and federal judges wrote Nevada’s chief federal district judge to urge him not to appoint her once her term expired. The group said Chattah’s history of “racially charged, violence-tinged, and inflammatory public statements” was disqualifying.

    The letter called Chattah’s interim appointment “a troubling pattern by the Trump administration of bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in confirming U.S. Attorneys.”

    According to the letter, as of July, Trump had submitted formal nominations for only nine of his administration’s 37 interim appointees.

    “If this pattern persists, by late fall, more than one-third of the 93 U.S. Attorneys will have evaded Senate review this year alone,” the letter read. “Yet, the constitutional role of the Senate is vital regarding the appointment of U.S. Attorneys.”

    Each of Trump’s controversial picks has demonstrated fealty to the president. Chattah has long upheld Trump’s lie that he actually won the 2020 election. Habba — who once served as Trump’s personal attorney and has no prosecutorial experience — promised to turn New Jersey “red,” breaking with longstanding norms of federal prosecutors eschewing partisan politics. She has also filed criminal charges against two Democratic lawmakers in the state over scuffles with immigration officers at a Newark detention facility.

    Since taking office, Essayli has doggedly pursued Trump’s agenda, championing hard-line immigration enforcement in Southern California, often aping the president’s language verbatim at news conferences. His tenure has sparked discord in the office, with dozens of prosecutors quitting in the face of his belligerent, scream-first management style.

    A Times investigation last month found that his aggressive pursuit of charges against people protesting immigration enforcement in Southern California has led to weak cases being rejected again and again by grand juries. A number of others have been dismissed.

    Even if Trump had formally nominated him to serve a full term as U.S. attorney, it is unlikely he would have ever appeared on the Senate floor. California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats, are both opposed to Essayli’s appointment and could have derailed any nomination by withholding what is known as their “blue slip,” or acknowledgment of support for a nominee.

    The procedural blockades have drawn Trump’s ire, and the president has challenged Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to do away with honoring the blue slip tradition. Grassley has held firm, but Trump has threatened litigation.

    Legal experts called the White House’s move to keep Essayli in office unprecedented last month, and warned it could affect criminal cases.

    “These laws have never been used, as far as I can see, to bypass the Senate confirmation process or the judicial one,” Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor in L.A. who now serves as a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told The Times last month. “The most serious consequences are if you’re going to end up with indictments that are not valid because they weren’t signed by a lawful U.S. attorney.”

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    Brittny Mejia, James Queally

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