A Clinton Judge Just Gave Trump’s DOJ One Excuse for Why He Won’t Stop Noncitizen Ballots

Federal prosecutors charged a 72-year-old foreign national accused of voting in election after election as a fake American citizen.

His name sat on a list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens that Trump's Justice Department begged California to check.

A Clinton-appointed judge refused to hold those ballots back, and the harm that worried him was not your vote.

California Got 48 Hours and a Thumb Drive and Said No

On October 13, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan a password-protected thumb drive.

Inside were more than 20,000 names federal investigators had flagged as likely noncitizens, each one already sent a live ballot.

Back in July, DHS had already warned California that more than 190,000 registered voters "may be" noncitizens.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said investigators compared California's voter files against federal immigration data.

DOJ gave Weber and Logan 48 hours to help verify citizenship or set those ballots aside.

They refused.

"You're not allowed to have any noncitizens on your voter rolls," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli wrote.

"Stop playing games," he added.

On October 15, Attorney General Todd Blanche's Justice Department took California to federal court.

"State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America," Blanche said.

The government never asked to throw out a single ballot.

It asked California to hold those ballots out of the count until citizenship could be confirmed.

Then the charges started.

Federal prosecutors filed election-crime charges against 28 foreign nationals in California – and officials said every one of them was on the list Weber and Logan wouldn't review.

One of them, 72-year-old Alexander Muñoz, allegedly lied about his citizenship to register in 2019 and then cast ballots four times between 2020 and 2024.

Nationwide, the count of foreign nationals charged with election crimes has climbed to 48.

Judge David Carter Said Setting Ballots Aside Would Erode Trust

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee, denied the government's emergency request on October 28.

"This Court declines to be a party to such process," Carter wrote.

His reasoning would make a pretzel dizzy.

"Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable," he wrote.

"Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred."

Read that again.

In Carter's courtroom, the lasting harm is holding a suspected noncitizen's ballot for review – not counting it.

Carter went further, lecturing the administration that "California and its people are sovereign, too."

His fix for illegal voting?

Prosecute noncitizen voters after the fact under a federal misdemeanor statute.

This is the same judge who in January threw out DOJ's lawsuit seeking California's voter rolls.

The new case only landed in his courtroom after California flagged it as related to that earlier suit.

Essayli fired right back.

"This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution," Essayli said.

"Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials," he warned.

DOJ immediately filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

A Ninth Circuit panel had already tossed DOJ's first emergency appeal 2-1, ruling the government moved before Carter had a chance to decide.

Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented.

Orange County Had 547 Noncitizen Votes in a Race Decided By 984

California has been down this road before.

In 1996, Republican Congressman Bob Dornan lost his Orange County seat to Loretta Sanchez by 984 votes.

The Orange County district attorney later confirmed 547 votes cast by noncitizens – though not all of them came from Dornan's district.

Dornan's challenge went nowhere, and Sanchez kept the seat for two decades.

In 2018, the California DMV admitted it botched roughly 23,000 voter registrations under the state's brand-new Motor Voter program.

Fresno Assemblyman Jim Patterson branded the mess a "cover-up" and demanded an audit.

State officials swore their safeguards would keep noncitizens off the rolls.

The 28 charges filed in October say otherwise.

Carter's Ruling Leaves 20,000 Flagged Ballots in the Count

Under California law, every registered voter gets a ballot in the mail – no citizenship check at the mailbox.

A ballot that is set aside can still be counted the moment its owner proves citizenship.

A counted one, DOJ warned the court, may be impossible to pull back out once it is mixed into the pile.

"Every illegal vote cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen," McCotter said.

Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit "a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department."

The only thing desperate here is a state that refused to check 20,000 names before counting their ballots.

Now the Ninth Circuit gets one more shot at deciding whether California's voters matter more than California's paperwork.

If even a handful of those 20,000 names turn out like Alexander Muñoz, every legal voter in California just got told their ballot comes second.

Sources:

• U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California, "United States Sues California After Determining More Than 20,000 Likely Noncitizens Are Registered to Vote in the Golden State," U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California, October 15, 2026.
• Edvard Pettersson, "Judge Rejects Trump Bid to Sequester Votes by 'Noncitizens' in California," Courthouse News Service, October 28, 2026.
• Pierce Sharpe, "Feds Launch Immediate Appeal After Judge Rejects Bid to Stop California From Counting 20K Disputed Ballots," California Post, October 28, 2026.
• Megan Barth, "Ninth Circuit Forces California Response as DOJ Presses to Sequester 20,000 Suspected Noncitizen Ballots," California Globe, October 24, 2026.
• Carlos Garcia, "Newsom Is OUTRAGED Over Justice Department Lawsuit to Block Votes From 20,000 'Likely Noncitizens,'" TheBlaze, October 15, 2026.
• Teri Christoph, "The 'Myth' of Noncitizen Voting Strikes Again," RedState, October 26, 2026.
• Nicole Darrah, "California's 'Motor Voter' Program Sees Nearly 23,000 Erroneous Registrations Sent," Fox News, September 5, 2018.
• The Spokesman-Review, "Voting by Noncitizens Confirmed in California Race," The Spokesman-Review, April 20, 1997.