Suicide Squad

 This will take some annotating:

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter signaled Tuesday that he would reject the Trump administration's emergency bid to stop California from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters the DOJ alleges are likely noncitizens, according to posts from Politico legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, who tracked the hearing in Los Angeles.

Carter made clear he was "deeply skeptical" of the government's position, Cheney wrote. The judge asked why, if prosecutors suspected people were illegally registered to vote, they weren't charging them.

Three guesses, first two don't count. (I’ll explain that below.) Or, more likely, they lack the evidence to establish probable cause. This is where I remind you proving election fraud is very difficult, and illegally registering to vote without voting is a very minor crime, indeed. Not the sexy charge DOJ wants right now. More critically, they probably lack evidence that the people on their list are not citizens. And they don’t want to prove that in court.

"Let's get busy," Carter said.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who argued the case for the government, replied, "We're very busy."

"Get busier," Carter shot back.

Remember Lindsey Halligan? The courts determined her appointment was invalid, and that unzipped everything she’d touched? Forced it all to be dismissed without prejudice and started again, if at all, under a properly appointed USA. That’s the position Essayli’s in, except Trump is pissed at the law, and is having none of it.

Essayli was appointed because of a similar situation. There was a vacancy that couldn’t be filled by regular appointment, so the court of the district, per the statute, appointed a new USA. Trump promptly fired him and appointed Essayli. The trial court ruled he was invalidly appointed. That case is on appeal. Essayli is standing pat (as Halligan did, IIRC). That makes all cases he works on subject to dismissal, on this “technicality.”  DOJ knows this; but they don’t care. Like the 28 cases in LA they released on recognizance days before the election, they just want the headlines, here. Oh, and to fuck with California. And yes, this should be grounds for Bar discipline (despite what Blanche thinks, government attorneys are subject to Bar discipline); whether it will be, is another matter. An unlikely matter.

By these cases are going to be tossed, and DOJ doesn’t really care.

Cheney reported that Carter called the request a "monumental change" and said the issue needed a slower timeline with expert testimony, not rushed filings that would "have the court just wing it with a ruling." The judge then appointed a special master to dig deeper into the issue, a move Cheney described as effectively a win for California.

Carter closed the hearing with a warning aimed squarely at the Justice Department.

"This court believes it would be wise that any threats to state and county elected employees cease immediately. Good night," he said. He's expected to issue a formal ruling Wednesday.

The warning follows mounting pressure on local officials. Trump's Justice Department cautioned election workers across California that they could face federal scrutiny if they refused to help flag suspected noncitizens, and it handed state officials a list of 20,000 names, NBC News reported.

California's lawyers fought back in court. Anne Bellows, an attorney for the state, argued the department leaned on what she called "mysterious database methods" and said meeting its demands would risk stripping eligible voters of their ballots, Reuters reported.

So that case is DOA, too. Again, DOJ doesn’t care. The cases are all to give Trump something to suck his thumb over. Because that’s all they can possibly be. I’m quite serious that the lawyers signing the DOJ filings risk a referral to their Bars for investigation and disciplinary action. This stuff is that out of line. 

And DOJ doesn’t care.