Following the president’s claims made without providing any evidence…
Federal prosecutors have opened multiple election fraud investigations in California, according to an announcement Friday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Bill Essayli, the district’s first assistant U.S. attorney, said the investigations are being conducted in coordination with the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. He did not disclose details about the cases, including where the alleged misconduct occurred or whether any charges have been filed.
“Without commenting on any specific investigation, my office has multiple election fraud investigations underway in coordination with FBI Los Angeles,” Essayli said in a statement.
The announcement comes as California continues counting ballots from this week’s primary elections, with several major races still unresolved.
Essayli also said federal officials are working with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to review California’s voter rolls.
As the Los Angeles Times reports:
Essayli’s remarks, posted to X, seemed to be in response to President Trump alleging in his own social media post late Wednesday that Democrats in California were “cheating” in the state’s primary election, and that there was an investigation underway in Essayli’s office.
Essayli’s office also confirmed that one of its prosecutors — Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Renner — was at a Los Angeles County ballot processing center Friday “to observe the vote counting process.”
A spokesperson for Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, described the visit as in line with other routine observations of the counting process, which is open to public observation by appointment.
Democratic officials firmly rejected Trump’s claims of cheating, which they had warned he would make in advance of the election given his long record of objecting to and claiming fraud in elections he and his party lose.
Neither the U.S. Attorney’s Office nor the FBI has released additional information about the scope of the investigations.
Trump did not present evidence to substantiate the allegations. Instead, he cited California’s extended vote-counting timeline and criticized the state’s reliance on mail-in ballots, arguing that the process creates opportunities for fraud.
California election officials have acknowledged that final results can take time to compile but say the delays stem from the careful counting and verification of millions of ballots, including large volumes of mail votes that are legally accepted if postmarked by Election Day.
State officials have not publicly commented on the newly announced investigations. State officials have previously maintained that existing safeguards, including signature verification and voter-registration checks, help protect the integrity of elections.
California’s ballot-counting process often continues for days or weeks after Election Day because state law permits mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive within the statutory deadline.
At this time, federal authorities have not indicated whether the investigations are connected to any specific election contests or whether criminal charges are expected.
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