The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation in its intensifying campaign to prove thousands of noncitizens are on California’s voter rolls and issued federal grand jury subpoenas to local election officials, according to people with knowledge of the matter and copies of subpoenas obtained by The New York Times.
The move escalates the Justice Department’s legal battle in the most populous state as the administration seeks to tighten its grip on the midterm elections through unsubstantiated claims that large numbers of illegal voters are on the rolls.
The new subpoenas are the latest step in the administration’s broader effort to portray elections in Democratic states as rigged against Republicans, and comes after Justice Department officials have repeatedly suggested they would investigate and prosecute local election officials who did not accede to federal demands.
The people with knowledge of the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive legal matters.
At least two employees of Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office received grand jury subpoenas last week for a proceeding scheduled for Nov. 4, on the morning after the election, according to records obtained by The Times through the state’s public records law. Federal marshals served one official at home, despite having already serving that employee at the registrar’s office and issuing a notification of counsel, according to officials familiar with the incident.
The federal subpoenas followed others asking for records on individuals whom prosecutors appeared to suspect lacked the citizenship status required to cast ballots. The subpoenas seek copies of all internal communications about the Justice Department’s demands to county officials and the California secretary of state. They also ask for all records involving the agency’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and “efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted in any election.”
Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar, denounced the subpoenas as “intimidation.”
“At every step, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a confrontational, adversarial approach,” he said in a statement. “Election officials are acting in accordance with state and federal law.”
Shirley Weber, the California secretary of state, declined to comment on the subpoenas.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the grand jury subpoenas but noted that California officials and a federal judge have recently emphasized that issues of unlawful voting should be addressed through criminal prosecution.
A grand jury subpoena does not mean that the person who receives one is under investigation. The Justice Department rarely subpoenas individuals it intends to charge with a crime.
A letter sent last week to election officials across the state said they would “risk significant federal scrutiny” if they failed to comply with the Justice Department demands. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, where the new subpoenas were issued, also suggested that election officials could be prosecuted. “Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” he said.
The Trump administration sued this month to block the state from counting the votes of some 20,000 people it says are likely noncitizens, even though studies have found such fraud is very rare. California officials say that the federal data that generated a list of names is unreliable and that the demand comes at a time when officials are not supposed to make significant changes to voter rolls or rules.
The Trump administration has failed to persuade a judge of the merits of its lawsuit. Using criminal justice processes like a grand jury may allow the administration to gain access to records that it has so far failed to acquire through a lawsuit and menacing letters.
Mr. Essayli has been at the forefront of the Justice Department’s efforts to force California to comply with the administration’s demands.
In June, President Trump ordered Mr. Essayli to open an investigation into the state’s primary election. After a district judge ruled against the Justice Department on Wednesday, Mr. Essayli described the current standoff with the state as an “ongoing emergency” and noted that because California is a vote-by-mail state, ballots are already being processed every day by election officials.
Justice Department lawyers have appealed the judge’s decision, and Mr. Essayli said this week that he anticipated the question would be decided by the Supreme Court.
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