FILE PHOTO: US Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., US, September 30, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
President Donald Trump’s top Supreme Court lawyer distanced himself from Attorney General Todd Blanche’s claims about 20,000 likely noncitizen voters in California.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote three times that his office had been “informed” of the list’s findings, according to his emergency application to the justices.
Sauer filed it Monday, the day before Election Day, asking the court to order California to set aside mail ballots from people on the list until it checks their citizenship. A federal judge and a divided appeals court panel had both refused, The Associated Press reported.
Blanche put his own name behind the list. When the Justice Department sued California in October, he wrote on X that federal immigration agencies had identified the 20,000 people as “likely noncitizens” who “are on California’s voter rolls.” He added that “California has refused to comply and intends to facilitate noncitizens in voting.”
But Sauer’s filing credits those findings to others, treating Blanche's Justice Department as his client.
“In this case, this Office has been informed that the United States has identified more than 20,000 individuals who appear to be registered to vote in California,” Sauer wrote, describing them as likely noncitizens “in the United States’ view.”
Sauer’s filing says three times that his office was 'informed' of what the list found. A Raw Story review of 12 other emergency applications from his office found that wording in only one, used once before in Sept. 2026, about logistical problems with removals.
Blanche, Sauer’s boss at the Justice Department, has called the idea that the department is independent from the White House a “misperception.” “I work for President Trump,” Blanche said on New York Post columnist Miranda Devine’s podcast on Oct. 21, Mediaite reported. Sauer’s careful wording comes one level below an attorney general who says he works for the president.
One critic accused the department of a crime minutes after it announced the filing.
“This crime ... is precisely the crime Trump attempted in 2020,” national security journalist Marcy Wheeler wrote on X, responding to an Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter post announcing the filing. “Only this time, he has corrupt criminals at DOJ willing to do the crime with him.” McCotter’s post said the department would keep “pursuing every available legal avenue to protect the integrity of our elections and ensure federal law is enforced.”
The lawyer now relaying the list defended Trump in his own 2020 election case. As Trump’s personal lawyer, Sauer won him “substantial immunity from criminal prosecution” at the Supreme Court in 2024, after Trump was accused of election fraud and conspiracy over his protest of the 2020 results, CNN reported in May.
In that piece, CNN chief Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic described Sauer’s delivery before the justices as “quickfire, confrontational and imbued with MAGA attitude.”
A federal judge has already ordered the department to stop threatening California election officials with prosecution. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson found on Oct. 30 that the plaintiffs were likely to show violations of federal voter-intimidation protections, the Davis Vanguard reported. The department has appealed, according to Just Security’s litigation tracker.
Sauer is asking the justices to order the ballots set aside without deciding whether the people on the list are citizens. After relaying what his office was “informed,” the filing tells the court it “need not resolve any factual disputes about whether any particular individual is a California voter and is an alien or a citizen.”
“If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter wrote in denying the request, according to the AP.
“This is a desperate attempt to tilt the electoral playing field,” Amanda Carpenter, a writer and editor at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, wrote on X on Monday.
“This is fascism,” journalist Nancy Levine Stearns wrote on X, sharing a report of the filing.
The filing notes that California keeps accepting mail ballots through Nov. 10. Carter has set a hearing with witnesses on the government’s bid for a preliminary injunction for Nov. 13, three days after that deadline, according to the tracker.