Federal prosecutors in California have issued grand jury subpoenas to state and local election officials Thursday, according to a person with knowledge of the effort and a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office, which administers elections in the county. The person was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive investigative steps.

MS NOW has obtained three subpoenas issued last week to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office. Each subpoena demands the recipient testify on Nov. 4, the morning after Election Day, and produce documents, including any records or communications reflecting the county’s efforts to screen for noncitizen voters or prevent the counting of any noncitizens’ votes.

The move expands the Department of Justice’s controversial probe into suspected noncitizens who are registered to vote in California. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice sued California to demand officials there set aside mail ballots cast by any of the roughly 20,000 registered voters it identified as “likely noncitizens,” according to a database compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.

A district court denied the Justice Department’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced California to segregate any mail ballots cast by alleged noncitizens and refrain from counting or tabulating them unless and until California could verify their citizenship. The DOJ has already appealed that order, and Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has said that he expects the case will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta described the DOJ’s grand jury subpoenas as an attack.

“The Trump Administration’s escalating attacks on our hardworking elections officials in California are unacceptable,” Bonta said in a statement shared on X. “As Judge Carter said in his opinion yesterday,‘these threats must stop.’”

California and L.A. County officials have criticized the DOJ for claiming, without evidence, that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote, especially after the county said it reviewed a sample of registered voters on DHS’s list and found information indicating that many were born in the U.S.

The subpoenas, which were first reported by Bloomberg, are signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Michael Wheat, a veteran federal prosecutor who first joined the Justice Department in the 1980s. Wheat has brought criminal charges in recent weeks against alleged noncitizens for election-related crimes.

Wheat has also been tied to the investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar, who, according to a search warrant issued earlier this month, is being scrutinized for potential immigration fraud.

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A federal grand jury on Tuesday rejected an indictment against former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson after the Trump Justice Department tried to charge her over her stunning testimony on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sought to charge Hutchinson with a crime based on claims she made false statements, according to two people with knowledge of the case. They were granted anonymity to describe normally closed-door proceedings.

Just around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, an MS NOW reporter was present in the courtroom as a federal prosecutor reported a grand jury’s “non-concurrence” to a federal magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. A noncurrence means a majority of the grand jurors failed to reach agreement to indict. This was the only “non-concurrence” of the day.

Hutchinson, 29, served as a White House aide in President Donald Trump’s first term to his then-chief of staff Mark Meadows. She made a surprise appearance before the House Jan. 6 committee in June 2022, delivering a stunning description of Trump’s disregard for the violence at the Capitol that day and for his supporters’ threats to Vice President Pence’s life.

Her allegations also included that the president knew that his rally supporters who later marched on the Capitol were armed; that he lunged at a Secret Service agent and tried to take the wheel of the presidential vehicle after the driver refused to take him to the Capitol when the riot was underway; and that he threw his lunch at a White House wall in anger after then-Attorney General Bill Barr told The Associated Press in December 2020 there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the November election.

Hutchinson did not witness the alleged confrontation inside the presidential vehicle firsthand, and Secret Service agents subsequently disputed aspects of her account. She testified that she learned about the incident from another White House official.

Her testimony became a central part of the congressional investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump began calling the election results into question before Joe Biden was even declared the winner. Despite Trump’s demands that Vice President Mike Pence block the certification of the election results, Congress confirmed Biden the winner just hours after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

The Justice Department’s probe into Hutchinson recently intensified when federal prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division began presenting evidence to a grand jury in Washington as they sought to establish whether Hutchinson lied to Congress.

The role of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is unusual when a case involves allegations of false congressional testimony. Prosecutors had been reportedly considering potential perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

The attempt to charge Hutchinson is the latest in a series of prosecutions  that Trump’s Justice Department has brought against perceived enemies of the president including New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. Trump has repeatedly attacked Hutchinson’s credibility and accused her of lying about his actions on Jan. 6. Hutchinson has stood by her testimony.

It is rare for grand juries to reject indictments, but the case against Hutchinson  is not the first of the Trump Justice Department’s attempted  prosecutions to fail. Earlier this year, the Justice Department failed to indict the so-called Seditious Six Members of Congress, who published a video urging members of the military to refuse illegal orders. The DOJ also failed several times to re-indict James after her first case was dismissed when the prosecutor who secured that indictment was found to be unlawfully appointed.

In 2023, Hutchinson published a memoir, “Enough,” that detailed her time working in the Trump White House and more about what she saw on Jan. 6, 2021. During the 2024 election, she told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell that she was voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.

When the GOP retained its majority in Congress in 2024, Republican members turned their focus back to Hutchinson, demanding she hand over documents related to her book deal and her employment after the White House, among other things.

In March, CNN reported that House Republicans were asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Hutchinson, alleging she lied in her testimony before Congress that Trump knew of the potential for violence on Jan. 6 and proceeded to rile up his supporters regardless.

The criminal referral came from Republican Reps. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia and Jim Jordan of Ohio, who have led efforts to challenge the findings of the former House Jan. 6 committee and scrutinize the credibility of its witnesses.

The referral marked another escalation in Republicans’ yearslong effort to discredit Hutchinson.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Julianne McShane contributed to this story.

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