President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he directed the Department of Justice to investigate California elections and claimed that his intervention helped Steve Hilton advance in the state’s gubernatorial primary.
Speaking at a rally in Macungie, Pennsylvania, Trump said he called Bill Essayli and told him to take a look at California’s election after Hilton was in danger of missing the cut for the general election in November. Trump then said Essayli’s office checked the votes and, about one hour later, announced that Hilton had won.
The timing matters because Essayli’s office had already announced on June 5 that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles was probing California’s elections. Trump used the rally to cast that probe as proof that his call changed the result, saying, “Had I not made that call, Steve Hilton would right now be watching the election from home.” Hilton finished second in California’s jungle primary system, which sends the top two vote-getters to November.
That is where Trump’s account runs into the way California’s count actually works. In the state’s primary system, ballots can take days to finish counting, and more votes can be added after election night. Trump and his allies have used that slow process to push election-fraud claims before, including around the Los Angeles mayoral primary, but the basic mechanism does not support the idea that a phone call alone decided who advanced. Hilton moved on because the count continued, not because Trump said it should.
Trump also tied the episode to the SAVE America Act, calling California “totally rigged” and urging passage of the measure. Hilton has supported a state-level version of the SAVE America Act in California, putting him in the awkward position of benefiting from the very ballot system Trump attacked while also backing a bill meant to tighten election rules. What remains unexplained is the basis for the probe itself: Trump described a broad look at California elections, but not what specific evidence, if any, prompted the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles to open it.
Hilton will face Xavier Becerra in November, and Trump’s public claim has done more than revive his old election-fraud rhetoric. It has raised the sharper question of whether a presidential call to federal prosecutors can be presented as part of the political fight in a state race at all.
