A federal judge on Tuesday disqualified acting California U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli from three Justice Department cases, ruling that he had been “unlawfully serving in that role” past a legal expiration date and without Senate confirmation. But U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright said Essayli could continue to serve as first assistant U.S. attorney, “effectively leaving him as the office’s top prosecutor,” said The Associated Press.
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Seabright’s ruling “represents another setback” for the White House’s effort to “extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law,” said the AP. Since August, other federal judges have disqualified Alina Habba in New Jersey and Sigal Chattah in Nevada, “though in both cases they stayed their orders” to allow appeals, said The Washington Post. Similar challenges are also pending against acting U.S. Attorneys Ryan Ellison in New Mexico and Lindsey Halligan in Virginia.
Seabright notably rejected calls to drop the three cases Essayli had worked on, saying in his order that they had been “lawfully signed by other attorneys for the government” without signs of “due process violations or other irregularities.” The ruling “creates leadership uncertainty in the nation’s largest judicial district,” said The New York Times, but since Essayli can remain on as first assistant, it’s “unclear what the practical effect” will be.
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“Nothing is changing,” Essayli said on social media. “I’m not planning to go anywhere,” he told reporters yesterday. Under federal law, judges of the federal district court could appoint an interim U.S. attorney until a Senate-confirmed nominee is installed.
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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
