Hard-charging in Los Angeles, hard to find in San Francisco: new U.S. Attorneys chart own courses
“The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman,” U.S. Attorney General Robert Jackson told federal prosecutors in 1940, in a celebrated speech that became the byword for how federal district attorneys, as they were then known, were to run their affairs.
That elusiveness perhaps explains the markedly different approaches adopted by two newly minted U.S. Attorneys – central California’s Bill Essayli and northern California’s Craig Missakian – as observers look for early hints as to how they will manage prosecutions in their districts.
The gulf that has emerged between their respective methods has raised eyebrows, with one aligning his office’s enforcement priorities completely with those of the Trump Department of Justice, particularly on illegal immigration, while the other has embraced a policy of masterly inactivity.
In the three months since Bill Essayli’s appointment, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California has gone after criminal illegal aliens and the sanctuary cities that protect them, fraudsters misappropriating homelessness funds, and those who allow boys to compete in girls’ sports.
Essayli signposted his approach from the moment he took office and, within a month, had given multiple interviews outlining his uncompromising views and met publicly with the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to discuss deporting criminal illegal aliens.
In contrast, observers of federal prosecutors’ San Francisco office have seen few signs that similar action will be forthcoming there – and none at all that U.S. Attorney for the Northern District, Craig Missakian, has done much to set the tone in his crucial first month in charge.
“The government has a duty to protect its citizens. During the prior administration, this office abdicated its duty by effectively failing to prosecute any illegal reentry cases. Those days are over. Criminal illegal aliens will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli
“The government has a duty to protect its citizens,” said Essayli on May 1. “During the prior administration, this office abdicated its duty by effectively failing to prosecute any illegal reentry cases. Those days are over. Criminal illegal aliens will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Republican ex-federal prosecutor and two-term California lawmaker quickly set about making good on this commitment.
As his personal and official social media feeds attest, Essayli has prioritized the capture and prosecution of illegal aliens committing further offenses, regularly announcing the arrest of those accused of heinous crimes in the U.S. and reassuring the public that he is monitoring county jails daily for any signs of illegal immigrants who have reentered the U.S. so he can pursue them.
He also partnered with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to oppose California’s practice of allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports. It would have been natural for federal prosecutors in San Francisco to work with Dhillon, a noted Republican lawyer whose practice is based in the city, but so far it appears prosecutors in the City by the Bay have shown little interest in her drive to protect girls’ rights.
Essayli’s office regularly issues full descriptions of court cases that reach a verdict, complete with mugshots and crime scene photos to better inform residents of prosecutors’ work.
Most spectacularly, he last month initiated a lawsuit against Los Angeles officials who, he said, were providing aid and encouragement to illegal aliens’ efforts to avoid apprehension and removal.
“The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the City from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not,” he said.
“By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the city’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end.”
Essayli’s credibility had already been well established via his personal social media account, and he lost little time setting up a new account for his new position and reinvigorating his office’s online presence.
The resulting showcase for prosecutors’ work now frequently boasts views in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands per post.
Craig Missakian, by comparison, could hardly be accused of a barnstorming start to his term of office in San Francisco. While admittedly sworn in only on May 27, the genteel attorney – whose career includes a dutiful stint as counsel to the U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi – has had little to say for himself in interviews, press conferences, social media or anywhere else.
Those browsing his office’s X account find infrequent posts with low impression numbers that reflect the lack of compelling information about prosecutors’ work.
Elsewhere online, the situation is no better. The U.S. Attorney’s website still sports the biography of his acting predecessor on the “Meet the U.S. Attorney” page.
The lack of communication during this crucial early period may lead residents of northern California to assume his tenure will continue the soft-on-crime approach his predecessors favored and which Essayli in central California has rejected.
This is a pity. Missakian is hardly in want of critical issues demanding his immediate attention. The ten square blocks surrounding his office are overrun with illegal alien drug dealers that a nearly two-year effort initiated by Biden appointee Ismail Ramsey manifestly failed to address.
The resulting chaos is a highly visible repudiation of the Trump administration’s immigration and crime agendas and one which, were it in LA, Essayli would be determined to end, not manage.
The flagship “fast track” scheme aimed to arrest Hondurans, secure quick guilty pleas, and have them sent for deportation in less than a month. But judges viewed its leniency with incredulity, and the courts became a humiliating stage for the program’s failures: defendants who were promised never to return were soon back in court, having simply walked back across the border after their deportation.
And the office has faced accusations from victims’ families that prosecutions they did pursue were weak-kneed. Most notably, its plea agreement with an illegal alien dealer whose fentanyl, sold in the guise of cocaine, caused the death of a teacher in San Francisco, resulted in a nine-year sentence.
Unlike in central California, Missakian’s new office seldom publishes mugshots, aligning itself with a widely ridiculed SFPD policy implemented by ex-chief Bill Scott, who said it was racist to do so.
“From day one, my priorities have included protecting public safety, tackling violent crime, including crimes committed by violent offenders in the country illegally, combating investment and elder fraud, safeguarding the district’s technology and critical infrastructure and upholding the rule of law.”
U.S.Attorney Craig Missakian
For his part, Missakian today dismissed any suggestion that he had been slow off the blocks and pointed to what he said was a full calendar of meetings with local officials. He refused to be drawn on whether he endorses Trump administration immigration enforcement objectives.
“From day one,” said Missakian in a statement, “my priorities have included protecting public safety, tackling violent crime, including crimes committed by violent offenders in the country illegally, combating investment and elder fraud, safeguarding the district’s technology and critical infrastructure and upholding the rule of law.”
“My office is steadfast in its commitment to working closely with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners to achieve these goals, with emphasis on protecting the residents of the Northern District of California, keeping them safe and supporting our law enforcement partners.”
He insisted that the program to tackle drug dealing in San Francisco is “succeeding”, saying that only a handful of foreigners have been captured again in the United States after deportation.
There is nothing to indicate that Missakian has so far delivered a clear message to local officials in Northern California jurisdictions that his office will be as intolerant of their sanctuary policies as Essayli is in the central District.
And from his perspective, any reticence might be understandable. With robust enforcement likely to trigger a conniption fit from local activists and a backlash from Bay Area elites the U.S. Attorney could be forgiven for thinking twice before deciding whether to tackle these and other issues.
His hand may be forced if, as a consequence of Essayli’s actions, illegal alien criminals flee the area in and around Los Angeles and head for greener pastures in San Francisco.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco does have some stories to tell. It has begun prosecuting at least some illegal reentry cases, though whether this heralds a serious effort to address the issue or is simply a bare-minimum move to placate Washington and MAGA-adjacent commentators while staying in the good graces of local officials is unclear.
“[T]he only long-term policy that will save federal justice from being discredited by entanglements with local politics,” concluded Jackson in 1940, “is that it confine itself to strict and impartial enforcement of federal law, letting the chips fall in the community where they may.”
San Franciscans eyeing Los Angeles’ no-nonsense federal prosecutor may still hope Missakian will ‘let the chips fall’ with respect to his popularity with local elites and focus on priorities that ordinary residents, who need his protection, will support.
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