Trump Administration Subpoenaed L.A. County's Files on Individual Voters

At least five grand jury subpoenas sought registration files, voting history and citizenship attestations going back to 2020, records show.

Federal prosecutors have demanded Los Angeles County's files on individual voters, including whether each swore to being a U.S. citizen, grand jury subpoenas show.

The county has received at least five of the subpoenas. It released partially redacted copies to the Los Angeles Times under a public records request. The Times first reported that the subpoenas existed last week and published what's in them on Sept. 29.

If you're registered in L.A. County, the obvious question is whether you're on one of the lists. The records won't tell you.

The county blacked out every voter's name. It also isn't clear how many people each list holds, according to the Times.

What the subpoenas ask for

Four of them, one dated July 13 and three dated Sept. 10, seek "any and all original and non-redacted voter records" from Jan. 1, 2020, to now. Each covers a list of voters that runs two pages.

The requested material includes each voter's registration file, every address on it, their voting history, how they voted and any statement they made about citizenship. That last item is the box a registrant checks to say they're a citizen.

A fifth subpoena, dated July 31, appears to seek the same kind of file for a single voter. It's the only one of the five, based on the Times' account, that spells out that the voter's "ballot content or vote selections" shouldn't be handed over.

Who sent them, and under what authority

The subpoenas were issued out of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Prosecutors working under First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli asked that they go to the office of Dean Logan, the county's registrar-recorder and clerk.

A cover letter from Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Wheat, who works in the district's Orange County office, said the underlying criminal investigation belongs to Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. The letter told Logan's office to either send a records custodian to testify before the grand jury or hand the files to an HSI special agent.

Three of the subpoenas direct that the data go to Al Rossi, acting assistant head of HSI in Los Angeles. Wheat had asked that the subpoenas stay secret. The county released them anyway under state public records law, withholding the names to shield those voters from harassment or harm and to protect the investigation.

How the registrar responded

Logan has said his office is complying. He's also said he worries investigators may be building their lists from wrong or stale information, and that a subpoena gives the county no chance to ask how the names were chosen.

"There's really no information being provided to us on that," Logan told the Times.

What else is happening

The subpoenas target named people, not the whole roll. California and other states have already beaten back lawsuits in which the Trump administration demanded their complete voter lists.

But the ground is moving. On Sept. 25, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the administration's expanded use of government data to hunt for noncitizens on the rolls, lifting a lower court's block that had rested on worries the data is full of errors. Voting rights experts warn that misusing it could knock eligible voters off the rolls.

President Trump has claimed for years that noncitizen voting is widespread. Experts say it happens but is exceedingly rare. In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said, without offering evidence, that California's rolls might hold more than 190,000 such voters, and state officials called the claim baseless.

Essayli's office has made two voter fraud prosecutions public lately. In one, a 30-year-old man from Honduras is charged with two felonies, accused of falsely claiming to be a citizen and registering to vote fraudulently. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on bond.

The HSI agent named on the July 31 single-voter subpoena is the same agent whose affidavit supports that criminal complaint. The U.S. attorney's office didn't answer whether the two are linked, though it has said Wheat is prosecuting the case.

A spokesman for Essayli's office declined to discuss the investigations. Rossi referred questions to an HSI spokesperson, who didn't respond to the Times.

When that arrest was announced, Essayli called it "the first of many to come."

Source: latimes.com, retrieved September 30, 2026.