An election worker prepares absentee ballots for the upcoming general election in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli promised President Donald Trump that California was “a fraudster’s paradise,” and pledged would announce charges within weeks of his appointment. That was two months ago.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday that Essayli talked a big game but has failed to deliver.
After the California primary election, Trump and Republicans sounded the alarm that there had to be fraud going on because it was taking too long to count the ballots in Los Angeles County.
"They are trying to steal the governor of California primary, and the mayor of Los Angeles, primary, away from two great Republican candidates. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of mail in ballots," Trump ranted in all-caps on Truth Social.
Essayli posted his own promise to Trump on X, saying, "Without commenting on any specific investigation, my office has multiple election fraud investigations underway in coordination with @FBILosAngeles . We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent."
Only a few days later, he was speaking to Glenn Beck, promising to charge individual actors “in the next … one to two months.”
“I hate to put timelines on things,” Essayli said. “We need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations. But we will be charging some people.”
He also called on the public to send tips proving voter fraud was "widespread" in California.
“We are looking for any widespread conspiracy, if you will. Right now, I would say our investigations lean more into individual actors,” he explained. “Theoretically, I’d have to charge thousands of people to prove that it changed the outcome of the election. … But we are looking. We are looking.”
When he spoke to Chris Cuomo on News Nation, Essayli said, “there is evidence of voter fraud … and when we’re ready to bring those cases, you’ll see the evidence. You’ll see the case.”
But, that was at the beginning of the summer. On June 14, Essayli promised KCRA news, “So some of them are more developed and they’re ready to charge.”
After nothing for months, it appears the prosecutor is beginning to change the narrative, the report explained. The Chronicle cited Essayli, saying that to get access to the voter rolls, the Justice Department must sue the state of California and it might take a while.
A constitutional law professor explained how situations like this go beyond a debate about whether widespread voter fraud exists.
“At this point, unfortunately, I don’t know why anybody would believe the Department of Justice,” said Justin Levitt, who teaches at the Loyola Law School. “And that is not a thing that I relish saying as somebody who used to work there … It’s also not something that I would have said in the administration of any individual other than President Trump.”
When The Chronicle called the office to ask what the hold-up was, they were told they'd have an update in two weeks.
“It turns out that voter fraud does occasionally happen, but it is incredibly rare, like single-digits-of-balance rare,” Levitt said. “The elections in California, the elections in Southern California, the elections in other parts of California are very clean. And election officials work incredibly hard to make sure that they’re very clean. It does great disservice to the election officials when people run their mouths.”
He explained that Essayli is "a piece" of the larger whole of the Justice Department and currently the DOJ doesn't enjoy much credibility in court.
“I’m not sure this U.S. attorney has established himself as a trusted local partner with the sort of vague allegations of widespread wrongdoing that he hasn’t been able to back up. To be clear, he hasn’t been able to back it up because I don’t personally believe that these things he was saying are true," Levitt said.
Trump and Republican allies spent over a week spreading claims that fraud was afoot in California and calling for action. Levitt explained that these kinds of conspiracy theories from officials spread further mistrust and sow doubt.