DOJ Hits LA County Election Officials With Grand Jury Subpoenas

The Justice Department has escalated its fight with California over noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls, sending federal grand jury subpoenas to Los Angeles County election officials, according to The New York Times and Bloomberg Law.

The Times reported Thursday that the Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation tied to its effort to prove that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in California, citing people with knowledge of the matter and copies of subpoenas the paper obtained. Bloomberg Law reported that an initial batch of subpoenas went out to California officials on Thursday, citing a person who asked not to be identified.

🚨 BREAKING: The Trump DOJ just fired off federal grand jury subpoenas at Los Angeles County election officials, as a CRIMINAL investigation has just been opened into noncitizens on California's voter rolls — NYT

The election integrity hammer is here!

At least two LA County… pic.twitter.com/qwB3Rr8wsL

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 29, 2026

According to the Times, at least two employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office received grand jury subpoenas for a proceeding set for Nov. 4, the morning after Election Day.

What prosecutors are asking for

The subpoenas seek copies of all internal communications about the Justice Department’s demands to county officials and to the California secretary of state, the Times reported. They also ask for records on the county’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and its “efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted in any election,” according to the Times.

Bloomberg Law reported that Justice Department leadership directed top federal prosecutors in California to pursue criminal subpoenas of state and local officials over their roles in administering allegedly illegal voting, citing two people familiar with the situation. Bloomberg Law said prosecutors in Los Angeles and at least one other California district began carrying out that directive Thursday.

The Times reported that Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, where the new subpoenas were issued, has suggested election officials could face prosecution. “Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” Essayli said, according to the Times.

DOJ responds

A Justice Department spokeswoman told Bloomberg Law that the department “does not comment on leaks about alleged grand jury subpoenas.” She added, according to Bloomberg Law, that “the district court judge explained that voting unlawfully results in criminal exposure” and that “all agree that noncitizen voting is properly addressed through criminal law.”

Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan pushed back. “At every step, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a confrontational, adversarial approach,” Logan said in a statement reported by the Times. “Election officials are acting in accordance with state and federal law.” The Times reported that Logan denounced the subpoenas as “intimidation.”

The Times noted that receiving a grand jury subpoena does not mean a person is under investigation, and that the department rarely subpoenas people it intends to charge.

How we got here

The subpoenas follow a federal judge’s rejection of the department’s bid to force California to set aside up to 20,000 mail ballots from voters the administration flagged as likely noncitizens, according to Bloomberg Law. The Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Logan on Oct. 15 over those ballots, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The new subpoenas also build on earlier ones. The Los Angeles Times reported in September that county election officials had received at least five grand jury subpoenas seeking individual voter records as part of a criminal investigation into illegal voting.

No charges against any election official have been announced, and Bloomberg Law reported that the names of those being targeted and any charges the department may pursue are not yet known. With Election Day on Nov. 3 and the grand jury date the next morning, the standoff over who is on California’s rolls is now in front of a federal grand jury.

Reporting by Daily Beltway.