Subpoena records offer clues about federal probe of L.A. County voters
Federal investigators have sent Los Angeles County elections officials at least five grand jury subpoenas for individual voter records as part of a criminal investigation into illegal voting, according to partially redacted records reviewed by The Times.
The subpoenas — released in response to a public records request — appear related to a nationwide effort by the Trump administration to identify noncitizens who have illegally cast ballots in U.S. elections.
The subpoenas were issued in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. They were sent to L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan’s office at the request of prosecutors in the office of First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli.
“The enclosed subpoena has been issued in connection with an official criminal investigation being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations,” Assistant. U.S. Atty. Michael Wheat — based out of the district’s Orange County office — wrote in a letter accompanying a Sept. 10 subpoena.
Wheat wrote that a custodian of records from Logan’s office must either appear before the grand jury to present the records or deliver the materials to a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations.
Four of the subpoenas — one issued on July 13 and three on Sept. 10 — request “any and all original and non-redacted voter records” from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present for a list of individual voters stretching across two pages. The lists were redacted by Los Angeles County officials, and it is unclear how many individuals each list contained.
Each of those subpoenas notes that records to be produced include information on individual voters, such as their “registration file” and “addresses listed, history and method of voting, [and] any and all attestation regarding citizenship status.”
A fifth subpoena, issued July 31, appears to request similar information for a single voter, and notes that the voter’s “ballot content or vote selections” should not be included.
Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for Essayli’s office, declined to comment on the investigations Monday.
The Times first reported the existence of the subpoenas, but not details from the records themselves, last week, after Logan confirmed that his office was complying with the federal inquiry despite having concerns that investigators may be using incorrect or outdated information to produce their lists of voters to investigate.
“We’re responding appropriately as directed through a subpoena, but that doesn’t afford the dialogue for us to get the background on what they’re looking for and how they came up with the names that they did,” Logan said. “There’s really no information being provided to us on that.”
President Trump has alleged for years that illegal voting by noncitizens is widespread, though experts say the problem — which they acknowledge occurs — is exceedingly rare. Homeland Security officials have been leading a campaign in recent months to identify such fraud nationwide, and the subpoenas received by L.A. County appear to match others received by elections officials elsewhere in the country.
Essayli — a Trump loyalist who has not been confirmed to lead the Los Angeles prosecutor’s office by the U.S. Senate and whose de facto leadership has been contested in court — has been vocal about his office’s pursuit of voter fraud, including by noncitizens.
His office has announced two voter fraud cases in recent weeks, including one involving the arrest of 30-year-old Honduran national on two felony charges of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship and fraudulently registering to vote. That man, Darwin Jonathan Rivera-Flores, has pleaded not guilty and is out on bond pending trial.
Rivera-Flores and his attorney declined to comment.
The Justice Department also recently announced it had charged 16 noncitizens in six other states with illegal voting and other election-related crimes.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin publicly claimed in July — without providing evidence — that there may be more than 190,000 such voters on California rolls, a claim California officials dismissed as baseless.
Three of the five subpoenas received by Logan’s office ask that the voter information be shared with Al Rossi, the acting assistant head of Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles.
Reached by phone, Rossi referred questions to an agency spokesperson, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Wheat had asked that the subpoenas be kept secret, so as not to impede an open investigation. Logan’s office released the records in accordance with California public records law, but redacted the names of voters on the grounds that doing so “protects those individuals from undue attention, harassment, intimidation, or possible harm” and “protects the integrity” of the investigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld Trump’s expanded use of government data to search for noncitizens who are registered to vote. A lower court order had blocked use of the data over concerns — shared by the Supreme Court’s liberal wing — that the data are error-prone.
Voting rights experts have expressed concern that misuse of the data could lead to legitimate voters being purged from rolls.
States across the country, including California, have successfully fought off lawsuits from the Trump administration demanding the states’ complete voter rolls.
It is unclear why a subpoena for a single voter’s information would come between subpoenas for information on longer lists of voters. But it lines up with the case against Rivera-Flores.
In an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint against Rivera-Flores, Special Agent Christopher Kuzma — the same agent listed on the July 31 subpoena requesting a single voter’s information — said he received a series of texts he believed were from Rivera-Flores, who had previously been issued a misdemeanor citation on suspicion of disrupting immigration law enforcement operations at the federal building in Camarillo.
One text sent in April 2026 stated, “Your not the good guy I can’t wait until the mid terms you dont have qualified immunity then we can start and indict all you guys one bye one.”
Kuzma said in his affidavit that he took the message to mean Rivera-Flores “has both an interest in the voting process and an intent to participate in the election process.”
According to the affidavit, Kuzma said he conducted several record checks through public databases, including on the California secretary of state’s website, which “disclosed an online voter registration record” for a “Darwin Rivera” at Rivera-Flores’ address.
In July 2026, Kuzma said in the affidavit, he reviewed records from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office for “Darwin J Rivera,” which showed the applicant had checked a box stating he was a U.S. citizen.
Kuzma’s affidavit said in August 2026 he received certified voter registration records from Los Angeles County.
The spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not respond to a question about whether Kuzma’s July 31 subpoena was specific to Rivera-Flores, but the office has previously said Wheat is prosecuting the case.
When Rivera-Flores’ arrest was announced, Essayli said it was “the first of many to come.”
