As an attorney, Bill Essayli represented two January 6 defendants, arguing that men accused of crimes outside the U.S. Capitol were merely expressing their First Amendment rights. Now that he’s representing the Trump administration as the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, he has a very different perspective on some of the protesters opposing mass deportation.

“They are injuring our officers. It is out of control, and since the state of California, the governor, can’t control his state, then yes, the federal government is going to step in. The National Guard is on its way, and we will have peace and order in Los Angeles,” said Essayli, who is serving as Donald Trump’s interim U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.

Elected in 2022 as a Republican state assembly member representing California’s Inland Empire, the junior legislator rose quickly to a prized Justice Department post. Despite passing little legislation in his two terms in Sacramento, Essayli elevated his profile in the MAGA world by introducing bills seemingly designed to grab the attention of the far-right media world — and defending these extreme proposals loudly on Fox News.

Now he represents Trump administration’s interests in federal court in Los Angeles, where Essayli has hit demonstrators who took to the streets to protest Trump’s deportation campaign with conspiracy charges that carry stiff sentences, while claiming that he supports the right to peaceful protest.

Trump has yet to formally nominate anyone to serve as the U.S. attorney on a permanent basis. If he does tap Essayli, whose temporary appointment expires at the end of July, activists in California are calling on the state’s two U.S. senators to block his confirmation using an obscure privilege known as the “blue slip” process.

“This tradition was made for exactly these kinds of things, where an attorney is just not acceptable as an appointee. He’s not there for justice but for partisan purposes,” said Jacob Daruvala, the director of the Stop Essayli campaign and a former constituent involved in LGBTQ advocacy.

Essayli did not respond to a request for comment sent through his office.

Steep Charges

Essayli was sworn in as the interim U.S. attorney in Los Angeles on April 2, following his appointment by Attorney General Pam Bondi under a federal statute that allows him to stay in the post for 120 days.

He brought to the post more experience than some of the administration’s other interim appointments — such as Ed Martin in Washington, D.C. — having previously participated in the office’s prosecutions of the 2015 San Bernardino mass shooting attack as an assistant U.S. attorney.

Since his appointment, however, Essayli has quickly alienated career prosecutors, protesters in Los Angeles, and top politicians across the state.

One of his first moves was to sign his name to a rare post-trial plea deal for a sheriff’s deputy who had already been convicted of excessive force for pepper-spraying a woman outside a supermarket. Soon thereafter, several federal prosecutors withdrew from the case and resigned from the office, according to the Los Angeles Times.