DOJ Prosecutor Says He’ll Just Keep Prosecuting Despite Court Ruling He Was Illegally Appointed
from the because-fuck-America,-that's-why dept
Another “fuck you” has been delivered to federal courts by the Trump administration. This time, the extended middle finger is embodied by (extremely recently now-former) US Attorney Bill Essayli.
Essayli has made headlines here before, mainly for yelling ineffectively at prosecutors who were unable to convert bullshit cases against anti-ICE protesters into federal indictments. Essayli is angry, the papers said. Trump, however, seems to like him. In fact, he seems to like him so much he didn’t even bother to get Essayli legally appointed.
That’s what a federal judge ruled late last week.
Bill Essayli, Trump’s pick in April to temporarily lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, should have departed the post by July 31 under a 120-day limit imposed by federal law, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright concluded.
An unusual maneuver by Attorney General Pam Bondi to extend Essayli’s tenure into 2026 violated federal appointment laws, the Hawaii-based George W. Bush appointee ruled.
“Simply stated: Essayli unlawfully assumed the role of Acting United States Attorney for the Central District of California,” Seabright concluded. “Essayli may not perform the functions and duties of the United States Attorney … He is disqualified from serving in that role.”
OK, there’s a reason rules like this are in place. And Bill Essayli, along with Pam Bondi and the rest of the Trump administration, are demonstrating why rules like these are in place. These rules normally — NORMALLY — discourage purges and the installation of loyalists. This is especially important in entities like the Department of Justice which, like all federal agencies, is supposed to serve the public, rather than the vengeful whims of an aspiring autocrat.
When these get ignored, Bill Essayli happens. You get a Trump puppet engaging in vengeful prosecutions of Trump’s personal enemies, along with tons of bullshit prosecutions of people engaged in their First Amendment protected right to complain about the government.
Now, we’d normally expect someone to step down for the time being and cede power to another, more legally qualified person until everything gets back in line, legally speaking. But, of course, that isn’t the case here. Essayli has gone far beyond the expected “you can’t fire me, I refuse to be fired” response common to Trump administration officials. Instead, he’s telling the court that telling him he had no legally derived prosecution power has only made him a more powerful prosecutor.
“We’re actually quite relieved,” Essayli said in an interview. “The judge has made it clear that regardless of my title I’m cleared to keep running the office, I’m very happy with the outcome.”
Yeah, that’s not actually what the court said. And it still has the power to appoint someone to take Essayli’s place until someone actually confirmed by the Senate ascends to his office. But since this hasn’t happened yet, Essayli assumes it won’t happen for… the next three years, I guess.
And that’s part and parcel of this administration’s incessant shitbirdery. Whenever someone tells them they can’t do something, they just pretend no one has said anything. And if they can be bothered to pay attention to the words used by federal judges in rulings against them, they head to The Nazi Bar to rant about liberal activist judges and insist no law is capable of constraining the leader of the Law and Order party.
If there’s any justice in the world (and there’s hardly any of that), Essayli, Bondi, and everyone else associated with this stillbirth of an administration will become terminally unemployable. But for now, we’re just going to have to suffer through a bunch of people who refuse to cede power, no matter what any other branch of the government says.
Filed Under: bill essayli, doj, pam bondi, trump administration
Comments on “DOJ Prosecutor Says He’ll Just Keep Prosecuting Despite Court Ruling He Was Illegally Appointed”
Quite wrong you are.
“Unemployable” is not about justice but sense of justice. If there is any justice Bondi will serve time for being part of a racketeering enterprise breaking the law, and Essayli will serve time for pretending to be an officer and performing illegal acts under the color of law.
You’d hope they’d also be unemployable, but that would require 100% of law-respecting (not just law-abiding) employers. If we even had 50% of law-respecting citizens we would not be in the fix we are in now.
Dear TD
Wew need a billboard on the side of “Stupid things said” by those in charge. Please.
Another one would be nie also, “Direct from the monkey’s mouth”
I know you can do it, and would love to.
Re: I don't have the screen estate for that
And even if I had the screen estate, I don’t want to pay for the bandwidth. And I don’t want any AI trained on the sewage spilling in via my Internet link.
I was badly enough inconvenienced by the predictive ads I got while I was sharing an Internet link with a riding school teacher.
Good job if you can (illegally) get it
But for now, we’re just going to have to suffer through a bunch of people who refuse to cede power, no matter what any other branch of the government says.
If only there was some sort of law or laws out there that made fraudulently acting as a federal officer a crime or something, some way to, I dunno, arrest someone who’s engaging in criminal actions in order to prevent them from continuing those actions and prosecute them for those actions…
A huge part of the regime’s power-grab is based upon bluffing, simply assert that they have the power and legal authority to do something and then dare someone to take them to court over it and hold them accountable, and the horrifying thing is more often than not between complicit republicans, democrats who ‘don’t want to be rude’ or whatever excuse they use to justify their complicity and/or cowardice and judges still lying to themselves that they’re dealing with people and agencies operating in good faith and within the law it’s worked.
Re:
It’s the responsibility of the courts to call those bluffs. However, any court decision that isn’t rendered by SCOTUS gets appealed to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS is 150% cool with Trump & Co doing whatever the fuck, forever, with no limitations at all.
Re: Re:
SCOTUS is also too cowardly to outright admit that, so judges can and should just keep ruling against the regime according to the laws and legal precedent that exists and force SCOTUS to either throw tantrum after tantrum or admit their corruption with an official ruling.
It seems like there would be a relatively “simple” solution. Every federal judge in that district immediately dismisses with prejudice all charges against anyone being prosecuted by that office.
Re:
Without prejudice, please. Otherwise this huckster will bring all the obvious charges against everyone in this criminal administration and gets them dismissed with prejudice.
Yeah, because the dude is an anti American traitor.
I wonder how many children he has raped.
Re:
Is that really necessary?
Shit is bad enough without making shit up with which to accuse others. This is the behavior of conspiracy theorists and Republicans/conservatives.
Oh, I dunno about that last. They should remain very employable – for making license plates, perhaps and/or cooking and laundry for their fellow inmates.
$1 an hour for a 12-hour shift should be fine.
“arrest someone who’s engaging in criminal actions in order to prevent them from continuing those actions and prosecute them for those actions”
The problem, as I’m sure you recognize, is that it’s a supposed government official who is breaking the law and it’s the Department of Justice who is responsible for prosecuting those who break the same law.
This is why the Department of Justice was previously a semi-independent arm of the government. Since this is no longer the case, the situation is now “The law is what I say it is”, with no recourse.
The United States now has a totalitarian government and it shocks me how many people seem to be ok with that. All of the folks with guns, pickup trucks and “don’t tread on me” are awfully quiet all of sudden.
Re:
They are only quiet because they think the admin and law is still on the same side as those people
Re:
That’s because the government is treading on their hated neighbors.
Except we don’t in this case?
The judge said he is not a prosicutor. So he shouldn’t be treated like one. Revoke any access keys he has, change any locks that need to be changed and then either ignore or arest him like you would if I walked in and pretended to be a prosicutor.
Send a memo to all subordinates of his saying “He is not your boss. He has no authority” just to make it easier on them.
Then just… continue doing that?
Hopefully this makes it easy for judges to dismiss every case he’s attached to.
Re: 'As you're not a legally appointed prosecutor case dismissed, now get out.'
It shouldn’t be easy it should be downright trivial. Any case that he brings should be dismissed the second it’s presented to any judge in the state, no different than if a random citizen tried to bring charges against someone themselves and for the same reason in both instances.
Re: Re:
You cannot dismiss a case that has no basis in law. If the clerk accepts it, that is a filing or procedural error not even rising to the level of lack of standing.
Re:
Until they get appealed up to the “Supreme” Court, who will rubberstamp everything he does because it makes The Don happy, and making The Don happy is their sole and only reason to exist.
Essayli
If I understand correctly, an assumption in the OP is wrong. Essayli can legally continue to thug around in his capacity as first assistant US attorney. However, the court can appoint an acting US attorney, who would have the power to fire Essayli’s ass.
time to start dismissing every case hes involved in
dismissed with prejudice to they cant refile it.
order cops to ignore any arrests ordererd Essayli. and then start disbarment procedings against him.
You guys are all acting like there is still a government in charge and laws that allow the arrest of criminals. Look around. Those days are gone. All you have now is a gang of high level crooks running the show and they want money, more money, and all the money. Period. Time to start thinking about self defense kiddies.
My ex boyfriend Martinez
He was illegally lied on by a lady who stabbed him in his face with a knife she should be charged with bodily injury not him he didn’t even do anything wrong