Bill Essayli Disqualified as Los Angeles Acting US Attorney (1)

Bill Essayli was unlawfully serving as the Central District of California’s acting US attorney a federal judge said Tuesday, disqualifying him from the role while permitting him to stay on as a top supervising prosecutor in the office.

Judge J. Michael Seabright, a nominee of former President George W. Bush, said Essayli has been unlawfully serving since he stepped down as interim US attorney and took the acting role at the end of July and may no longer “perform the functions and duties of the United States Attorney as Acting United States Attorney.”

However, Seabright permitted him to stay on as first assistant, a role that may allow him maintain much if not all the authority he had as acting US attorney.

“The court has no basis to preclude Essayli from performing the lawful duties of a FAUSA,” Seabright said. “And in that capacity, he could supervise these prosecutions (even though he cannot do so as Acting United States Attorney).”

Until a new US Attorney is lawfully appointed, the Attorney General will perform the role’s duties, and can delegate “many, if not most, of those duties for other officials,” Seabright said.

Seabright also declined to dismiss indictments in the three cases where defense attorneys brought the motions to disqualify Essayli. He said other prosecutors lawfully signed them and that Essayli’s involvement doesn’t appear to have caused due process violations or other issues with their cases.

The lawyers challenging his designation argued Essayli should not be allowed to continue as first assistant and supervise prosecutions because it would be too similar to the job of an acting US attorney.

“The court shares Defendants’ concern that this result appears to ‘be little remedy at all,’” Seabright said. “And the court generally agrees that the Department of Justice ‘should not be able to accomplish effectively what the statute says [it] cannot do outright.’”

Pattern of Challenges

The motions to disqualify Essayli are part of a pattern of challenges to the Trump administration’s designation of top federal prosecutors without local approval.

District judges in Nevada and New Jersey have rejected the maneuver, where the attorney general briefly taps a pick to be their office’s first assistant so they can automatically fill a US attorney vacancy. A federal appellate panel expressed skepticism that New Jersey top prosecutor Alina Habba was installed using traditional processes.

Seabright said the FVRA’s subsection 3345(a)(1), the part of the federal vacancy law used to justify Essayli’s deisgnation, allows for a first assistant to assume, on an acting basis, the role of a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointee if the assistant is in place when the officer dies, resigns, or is incapacitated.

Bloomberg Law previously reported that Essayli has ignored and overruled the recommendations of senior prosecutors, instructed staff to disregard Justice Department policies, and forced lawyers to redo indictment failures before new grand juries, according to multiple lawyers with knowledge of the matters.

His office said the allegations were based on inaccurate and misleading information.

The case is USA v. Ramirez, C.D. Cal., No. 5:25-cr-00264, 10/28/25.