U.S. attorney says FBI and federal prosecutors are investigating alleged election fraud in California
U.S. First Deputy Atty. Bill Essayli said Friday morning that his office, in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles, “has multiple election fraud investigations ongoing.”
Essayli’s remarks, sent to
Essayli’s office also confirmed that one of its prosecutors — an Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Renner was at the Los Angeles County ballot processing center on Friday “to observe the vote counting process.”
Democratic officials have flatly rejected Trump’s allegations of fraud, which they warned he would make before the election, given his long history of contesting and claiming fraud in elections he and his party lost.
Trump offered no evidence for his claims, other than complaining that California was taking a long time to count votes and criticizing the mail-in voting system, suggesting it was a source of fraud. California officials acknowledged the process took longer than they wanted but said it was a result of careful and accurate counting of millions of ballots, most of which were mailed on Election Day.
“Taking the time to do this job right protects voters’ rights and ensures the integrity of our elections,” California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a statement Thursday. he said. “California has built a strong system that expands access, empowers voters, and enables more Californians to fully participate in our democracy.”
Essayli, a Trump loyalist whom the administration hired through a loophole to head one of the nation’s largest federal prosecutors’ offices despite not being confirmed by the Senate, also offered few details in a Friday post, saying he would not comment “on any specific investigation.”
He said protecting California elections is a “number one priority” for his office and that “the California election system has serious structural weaknesses.”
He said California’s vote-by-mail system and voter identification requirements (none of which exist, but which in California include signature verification to ensure voters are who they say they are) that the vast majority of voters in the state rely on, “undermine the public’s trust by creating conditions in which fraud can go undetected and go unpunished.”
“We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and fully investigate violations of federal election law,” Essayli said.
He also stated that his office is working with the Paralegal. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, “will conduct a comprehensive audit of California’s voter rolls.”
The Justice Department sued the state for voter rolls in a lawsuit filed by a federal judge who called the request “unprecedented and illegal” and accused the federal government of trying to “restrict the right of many Americans to vote.”
The Department of Justice appealed the decision, and the case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
“The state has blocked every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote,” Essayli wrote. “My office will not look the other way. We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels out one.”
Essayli’s office did not provide any additional information about Renner’s presence at the county polling station.
Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County recorder/recorder’s office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
California Adv. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office was also involved in monitoring voting proceedings in the state, including last year’s vote on Proposition 50. Bonta’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
