When Trump’s top L.A. prosecutor teamed up with the ACLU

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, April 21. You can expect a cloudy day (the mercury shouldn’t crack 70) with a chance of afternoon rain.

In today’s newsletter, we have a look at L.A.’s budget, another twist in California’s governor’s race and good news for the city’s stray cats and dogs. But first, the wild legal case that the most powerful prosecutor in Los Angeles never talks about.

The U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles is the chief federal law enforcement officer for a region of 20 million people, from San Luis Obispo to L.A. to Riverside — one of the most powerful representatives of the federal government’s might on the West Coast.

In the past, those who have held the position have typically fit a standard profile: elite background, understated, well-connected and with a breadth of legal experience.

Then there is Bill Essayli, President Trump’s man in Los Angeles. 

For the last year, the 40-year-old lawyer, a rising star in the MAGA movement and a brash and pugnacious former state legislator, has overseen the second-largest U.S. Attorney’s office in the nation. 

Essayli has embraced partisanship in a way that none of his predecessors in recent memory have. He has attacked Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta by name. And online and on TV, Essayli has pilloried the Democratic establishment in California. 

Essayli’s latest target: the fraud that he says is endemic to California. Essayli told Fox News earlier this month that the state “has a massive fraud problem” and is quickly becoming “a failed state.” Newsom, he added, is “the fraud king.” In the first two weeks of April, Essayli posted more than 25 times on “X” about fraud.

His drumbeat on fraud seems to follow the same playbook as his focus last year on illegal immigration: He frequently lashed out at anti-ICE demonstrators in the media and vowed to “neutralize” sanctuary state policies, boasting: “law and order is back.”

But despite his love of publicity and penchant for posting on social media and giving press conferences, there is a chapter of Essayli’s career that he rarely talks about: how he partnered with the ACLU just a few years ago to defend his own family against major federal fraud charges, going into battle against the very office he now leads.

In 2020, a few of Essayli’s relatives were among the 12 people indicted in what prosecutors said was a large-scale scheme to defraud Target by buying millions of dollars in electronics and other merchandise by exploiting various discount programs, then reselling the goods for a profit. 

The crew was accused in the indictment of criss-crossing the nation, sometimes hitting up multiple Target stores in a day, to swipe a single $10-off coupon hundreds of times or pose as military veterans to get discounts.

The federal government’s investigation was rife with intrigue. For one, it appears to have started as a counterterrorism case. 

Our latest story is an exclusive look inside the case and what followed. L.A. Material reporter Matt Hamilton delved into thousands of pages of court documents and conducted more than two dozen interviews to produce a deep and surprising look at one of the most powerful, and little known, people shaping life in Los Angeles today.

Thank you for reading L.A. Material. We’re brand new, and reader-supported. If you like what we’re up to, pass this along to a friend and consider upgrading your subscription.

Mayor Karen Bass unveiled her proposed budget Monday, saying the city was not planning layoffs. There was also good budget news in the form of higher-than-expected revenues. The city is in a far better place than it was a year ago, when officials had to close a nearly $1 billion budget gap.

Back then, the city brokered deals with labor unions to stave off large-scale layoffs.

This year’s proposed spending plan is what the L.A. Times termed a “hold-the-line budget,” since there aren’t major cuts, but also few big expansions. The budget increases LAPD hiring over last year, which Bass said will maintain the size of the force in the face of attrition. It also increases funding for street and sidewalk repair.

The city budget is an example of the L.A.’s relatively weak mayoral system: The mayor is in charge of crafting the budget, which is an enormous lever of power, but the City Council can make changes and the budget has to be passed by the council, who can ultimately override a mayoral veto on the budget.

COOK STEPS DOWN AS TOP APPLE: Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Monday that he would step down in September. Cook spent 15 years as the head of Apple, a period in which the iPhone made the company one of the world’s richest and most powerful. Cook, 65, will become Apple’s executive chairman, while John Termus, currently the company’s head of hardware engineering, will ascend to the top job. Variety reported that his selection suggests that the company believes that, even with its move into Hollywood, “physical devices remain the company’s core financial engine.” 

BETTY YEE BOWS OUT: Former State Controller Betty Yee announced Monday that she was quitting the race for governor. Yee cited low polling numbers and, according to the L.A. Times, a realization that voters were not prioritizing “competence and experience” but instead wanted someone who would “be the loudest.” The move is the latest twist in the wild race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, which was upended earlier this month when front-runner Eric Salwell was accused of sexual assault. Swalwell has denied the allegations, but he resigned from Congress and the race. 

BALLOON LANDING: A hot air balloon with 13 passengers on board made an emergency landing in a Temecula backyard. The L.A. Times has an interview with Temecula resident Hunter Perrin, who told the paper that he and his wife stepped “out of the door and there’s 13 people in a basket waving at us and saying ‘Good morning.’” 

ANIMAL WELFARE: Animal welfare groups are donating $14 million to the city of Los Angeles to improve conditions at Los Angeles city animal shelters, according to the L.A. Times. The money will pay to hire 23 new full time staff members to work in the city’s six shelters, which have been criticized for inhumane conditions. 

'GIVE US BACK OUR OZEMPIC': Staffers at Penske Media (the umbrella company behind Variety, Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter) are reportedly outraged at a change in their insurance plan that now requires prior authorization for GLP-1s, Page Six Hollywood reports. The media giant denied the reports to the tab, saying there had been no change in the health plan.

For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, a #vanityplates contribution from @lani:

AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “Although the wind ...” by Izumi Shikibu, translated from the Japanese by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani.

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