Politics
Trump ally and rising California GOP star Essayli named top federal prosecutor in L.A.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi has appointed Riverside County Assemblymember Bill Essayli — considered a rising and controversial Republican voice in California — as U.S. attorney for Los Angeles and surrounding areas, according to an email sent to the office’s staff and reviewed by The Times on Tuesday.
“Bill is excited to get started and will be sworn in tomorrow,” acting U.S. Atty. Joseph McNally wrote in the email. He noted that Essayli had previously served as a prosecutor in the same office and called his return a “homecoming.”
Sources familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly said that Essayli’s appointment is as interim U.S. attorney, and that he will still need to be nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate in order to fill the position on a permanent basis.
In a press release Tuesday night, Essayli’s chief of staff, Shawn Lewis, said Essayli had vacated his seat in the California State Assembly to accept the appointment.
“I intend to implement the President’s mission to restore trust in our justice system and pursue those who dare to cause harm to the United States and the People of our nation,” Essayli said.
Essayli, who was elected to represent part of Riverside County in 2022, has made his name in politics in part by attacking what he calls the “woke” policies of California’s liberal majority in Sacramento. He will helm the Central District of California, the most populous U.S. attorney’s district in the country, covering some 20 million people across seven counties.
Essayli, 39, has been a strong supporter of Trump over the years. Last May, after Trump was convicted of felony crimes tied to a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election, Essayli posted on Facebook that he looked forward to electing Trump as president “to restore the rule of law and our constitutional principles.”
He has criticized COVID-19 restrictions, critical race theory and California policies aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ students. He has pushed especially hard for “parental rights” measures that would mandate parents be informed whenever a child identifies as transgender or asks to change their name or pronouns at school.
The same issue has been a focus of the Trump administration, which last week announced it was investigating the California Department of Education for allegedly withholding such information from parents.
U.S. attorneys are political appointees, and turnover in such posts is common in new administrations. However, Essayli’s selection comes amid robust efforts by Trump to install loyalists at the highest levels of government, including in law enforcement. It also follows allegations that the Trump administration is hiring and firing Justice Department attorneys based purely on politics and perceived loyalty to Trump and his allies.
Last week, the White House terminated Adam Schleifer, a federal prosecutor in L.A. who had been leading an investigation into a pro-Trump business executive.
McNally had been serving as acting U.S. attorney since Martin E. Estrada, a Biden appointee, resigned in January.
In his email Tuesday, McNally praised Essayli as a strong pick and his selection by Bondi as a vote of confidence in the staff of the Central District office, which he said is doing “incredible work.”
“Those of us who have worked with Bill can attest to this commitment to public service and making the people of this district safe,” he wrote. “It is a testament to the Office that the Attorney General has appointed one of our alums to this role.”
During Trump’s first term, then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions appointed Nicola Hanna as the interim U.S. attorney in L.A. The following month, Trump nominated Hanna to the office and he was later confirmed by the Senate. Essayli could follow a similar path as Hanna, though Trump’s intentions for him were not immediately clear.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Essayli also declined to comment when asked earlier Tuesday whether he was being appointed to the position.
Bill Essayli (R-Corona) represents California Assembly District 63.
(California State Assembly)
Essayli is part of a cohort of Riverside County conservatives with ties to the White House, several of whom met with Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president’s sons, just days before the election. The group included Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is now running for governor, and evangelical Pastor Tim Thompson, leader of the 412 Church in Murrieta.
Essayli has worked in the past, including on challenges to state COVID-19 restrictions, with Harmeet Dhillon, another conservative lawyer from the state whom Trump nominated to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Assemblymember Bill Essayli speaks about transgender athletes competing in girls high school sports at a Riverside Unified School District meeting in 2024.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Essayli is the son of Lebanese immigrants and the first person in his family to have graduated from college, according to his Assembly biography. He is Muslim, and in the past has said, “My religion drives my moral compass, but it’s not everything that I am.”
A graduate of Chapman University School of Law, Essayli served as a local prosecutor in the Riverside County district attorney’s office, then as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District, where he handled cases dealing with “violent and organized crime, identity theft, bank fraud, securities fraud, white-collar fraud, obstruction of justice, and a multitude of other matters,” according to his biography.
He was also part of the team of prosecutors that handled the San Bernardino terrorist attack and mass shooting in 2015, McNally noted in his email.
Essayli first ran for office in 2018 with a focus on California’s gas tax, and lost. In 2022, he ran again and won with a focus on school issues — blasting “woke warriors on the left” for miseducating local children, including on the “sins of our past.”
After winning, Essayli became a contentious colleague in Sacramento.
Assemblymember Bill Essayli (R-Corona) speaks during a news conference in Sacramento in 2023.
(Rahul Lal / CalMatters)
He has repeatedly been removed from committees by Democratic leaders, who have criticized him both for not showing up for subcommittee hearings and for directing personal attacks at his fellow Assembly members, including on social media.
Essayli has received attention in Republican circles beyond California for a bill he introduced that would have mandated schools inform parents of children who identify as transgender or express an interest in changing their pronouns or otherwise socially transitioning in school.
The assemblymember cast the measure as a “parental rights” bill, but LGBTQ+ advocates sharply criticized it as an “outing” measure that would endanger children in unaccepting homes. The bill never gained traction in Sacramento, but some school boards introduced similar measures at the local level. Democrats in Sacramento responded by pushing through a law barring such policies statewide.
Trump campaigned heavily against transgender rights during the election and has since introduced several executive orders attempting to scale back those rights, including in schools, sports and healthcare settings. He, like Essayli, has also claimed that such policies are “common sense.”
Essayli has accused liberal educators and lawmakers in California of running a “brainwashing operation” in schools where they tell kindergarten students that they can “pick one of 20 genders” and then “brainwash” children into thinking that their parents will kick them out of their homes if they tell them what is going on.
Gubernatorial candidate John Cox, left, and Assembly candidate Bill Essayli load boxes of signatures for a gas tax repeal initiative on April 20, 2018. Essayli lost in his 2018 bid for office.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Essayli said his “fear is that they’re going to start offering medical services at schools,” where state educators and other outside medical care providers such as Planned Parenthood would start providing students as young as 12 with hormone therapy and other medical treatments at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
“That’s coming down the line here,” Essayli claimed, without providing evidence.
Trump has made similar false claims about children receiving serious medical interventions to change their genders while at school and unbeknownst to their parents.
On Tuesday, California lawmakers held a hearing for an Essayli bill that would ban transgender athletes from female sports. Conservative commentator Matt Walsh testified in support of the bill, which was ultimately blocked in committee.
Times staff writer Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.
new video loaded: Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
transcript
transcript
Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to climbing through a broken window at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, now works for an office responsible for uncovering and defending against terrorism plots at the Pentagon.
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“Full pardon or commutation?” “Full pardon.”
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 4, 2026
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Democrats splintered over a resolution seeking to block the U.S. from assisting Israel’s war against Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, on Thursday.
The measure, offered by progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., would require President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Lebanon. For months, Israel and Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group and Iranian proxy, have been at war in southern Lebanon, but the United States has not joined the conflict.
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., rejected the measure. Critics argued the resolution could aid Hezbollah and potentially hamstring U.S. military operations in the country.
Tlaib’s resolution failed 92-324, with more than half of House Democrats joining nearly all Republicans to vote it down.
The Lebanon war powers resolution divided Democrats, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., joining Republicans in rejecting the measure. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg)
REP RASHIDA TLAIB MOVES TO BLOCK US OPERATIONS IN LEBANON BUT IGNORES HEZBOLLAH
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an Israel critic, was the lone Republican to support Tlaib’s measure. Meanwhile, Reps. Derek Tran, D-Calif., and Betty McCollum, D-Minn., voted present.
House Democratic leaders said shortly before the vote they would oppose Tlaib’s resolution and work with the progressive lawmaker on a narrower measure exempting some U.S. military operations in the country. Their statement also denounced Hezbollah as a “violent terrorist organization” and a “sworn enemy of the United States.”
Tlaib, who has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in Lebanon, did not mention Hezbollah in her resolution. She and other proponents of the measure also avoided discussing the Iranian proxy force during heated floor debate over the measure.
Republicans highlighted the omission and accused the legislation’s supporters of serving as “proxies for Hezbollah.”
“Apparently they don’t want to see Israel killing Hezbollah, even though it’s Hezbollah that is killing Israeli children, Israeli adults, Israeli elders,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., said Wednesday, referring to his Democratic colleagues.
Tlaib asserted that her resolution would only affect U.S. forces actively engaged in hostilities. Republicans, however, disputed that claim and suggested it would hurt U.S. efforts to counter Hezbollah.
“It doesn’t say anything about [whether] you can keep the Marines that are in the embassy,” Mast said, referring to the U.S. embassy in Beirut. “That’s a pretty big oversight. It doesn’t say anything about whether we can keep United States armed forces that are training missions with the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces]. Again, pretty big oversight.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, attempted to bar U.S. forces from joining Israel’s war in Lebanon. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg)
RASHIDA TLAIB HIT WITH HOUSE CENSURE THREAT, ACCUSED OF ‘CELEBRATING TERRORISM’ IN PRO-PALESTINIAN SPEECH
The debate turned personal when Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, linked Tlaib to Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization … and its members are butchers that you like to hang out with to a certain extent,” the Ohio lawmaker said, referring to Tlaib.
A shouting match between the two then broke out, with Tlaib demanding that Miller’s remarks be stricken from the record.
The presiding chair ultimately complied with her request, but Miller doubled down on his remarks.
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“Yes, I said it. I own it, and I stand by it,” Mast said on behalf of Miller on the floor.
Tlaib’s failed war powers resolution comes as Iran has sought to tie Israel’s invasion of Lebanon to its ceasefire negotiations with the United States.
Hezbollah, which has long helped Iran project power in the region, rejected a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon’s government Thursday.
WASHINGTON — Initial efforts in the Senate failed Thursday to block the $1.8-billion fund that the Trump administration has sought to establish to pay people who claim the government wronged them, though further attempts were likely to come Thursday afternoon.
Republicans narrowly voted down a Democratic amendment to ban the payout fund and then Democrats killed a Republican amendment, which would have prohibited the use of federal money for the fund but would have sent $1.7 billion to the Justice Department’s fraud division.
It was the second effort in Congress to rebuke President Trump in two days, following the House vote Wednesday to rein in Trump’s war powers in Iran.
The dueling amendments were proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). They were attached to the reconciliation bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, a high priority for Republicans.
The votes came as the Senate began a “vote-a-rama,” during which lawmakers were expected to propose a stream of amendments to the immigration bill on various topics.
The Trump administration’s plan for the payment fund — widely seen as a way for Trump to compensate his political allies, including those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — set off particular ire from some GOP lawmakers.
The plan has fueled growing unrest within parts of Trump’s party over his governance, compounded by the president’s endorsement of primary challengers to Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), as well as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), which angered some Republican senators.
Cassidy, who lost his primary and has since voiced strong opposition to Trump’s $1.8-billion fund, became a key player in the Thursday votes, voting down Schumer’s amendment but supporting Tillis’.
On Wednesday, Cassidy joined with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to argue in a court filing that the $1.8-billion fund circumvents Congress’ authority and violates the Constitution’s spending and appropriations clauses.
“It is an unconstitutional attempt to spend the People’s money without Congressional approval,” Cassidy and Booker wrote in an amicus brief filed in the federal court case challenging the fund.
The fund was created by the Justice Department to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Trump and his sons agreed to drop their personal lawsuit against the government in exchange for the creation of the $1.776-billion fund. Critics immediately questioned the plan, and it drew a rare backlash from Republicans.
In late May, GOP senators derailed plans to vote on the immigration bill over their displeasure with the payout fund and with Trump’s desire to use taxpayer funds for his planned White House ballroom. Senate Republicans removed the ballroom funding from the immigration package Wednesday, another setback for Trump.
The Trump administration sought to back away from its plans for the fund this week, following bipartisan outcry and a federal court ruling that temporarily blocked any payouts from the fund. Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Tuesday the administration would end its plans to move ahead with the concept.
But Trump on Wednesday told reporters he didn’t know whether the fund was dead, calling it “a beautiful thing.”
After Schumer proposed the first amendment to ban the fund Thursday morning, the Senate came to a standstill as three key Republican senators deliberated. Schumer framed his effort to ban the fund Thursday as a way to force a referendum on Trump’s plan.
The amendment “offers Republicans a choice: Do you support Donald Trump’s $2 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund, or do you want to protect the American people and their paychecks?” Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) urged Republicans to reject the amendment, saying Democrats were planning to “play so many games” on Thursday during the marathon session.
“We are going to fund immigration enforcement and border patrol, and I urge my Republican colleagues to stay united on that singular mission,” Moreno said.
The amendment failed after Cassidy voted against it. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska voted in favor.
Schumer’s amendment was uniformly supported by Democrats, including California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla.
Tillis, who also voted against Schumer’s amendment, immediately proposed his amendment. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) urged Democrats to oppose it, saying that the proposal would create “a new slush fund” by giving the money to the Justice Department.
“We heard over the last 48 hours that the acting attorney general said that this fund’s not moving forward. All this amendment does is codify what I believe the policy of the DOJ is,” Tillis said on the floor before voting began on his amendment. “This [fund] is unpopular, this administration has said they’re not moving forward with it; this is an opportunity for us to put it to bed.”
Responded Merkley: “Taking one slush fund and eliminating it and then creating a new slush fund still under control of the attorney general is not the way to go. The way to go is to get rid of these slush funds altogether.”
Trump has faced a recent string of failures, including the House vote Wednesday, a court ruling to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and a record-low approval rating among Americans as concern rises about economic issues, gas prices and Trump’s war with Iran.
On Wednesday, Trump lashed out against the four Republicans who backed the House war powers resolution, calling it “an unpatriotic thing” to do and calling the vote “meaningless.”
“They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves. MAGA!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote.
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, contributed to this report.
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