DOJ Issues Grand Jury Subpoenas to California Election Officials

The Justice Department on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, issued grand jury subpoenas to California election officials, including Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder employees. The subpoenas demand testimony on Nov. 4, the day after the election, and seek internal documents about federal requests to Secretary of State Shirley Weber on noncitizen voting. Weber is among those reportedly targeted. A day earlier, Judge David Carter rejected the DOJ's emergency motion to sequester ballots of roughly 20,000 people the department calls likely noncitizens. In his 26-page order, Carter wrote that never before has the federal government on the eve of an election sought to coerce a state to abandon its constitutional election procedures, and pointed to Section 611 prosecutions and California's registration-cancellation process as remedies. Dean Logan told ABC News the DOJ has taken a confrontational, adversarial approach and that threats have no place in elections. Gavin Newsom warned Donald Trump he was deploying election lawyers and had made illegal ballot seizure a felony. CONTESTED: The DOJ says about 20,000 on California rolls are likely noncitizens; Rob Bonta called the list garbage; Bill Essayli said the DOJ has the receipts and presented them in court. Criminal charges and the full target list were not immediately known.