SHOCK: Newsom Mocked DOJ — Here's The Post He Sent
Three words should have ended it: "We should have let them try." Instead, the Ninth Circuit ordered the count anyway.
At issue is a stack of roughly 20,000 mail ballots flagged by federal authorities because citizenship could not be verified. The Trump Justice Department asked California for 48 hours to keep those ballots separate while checks were completed. California refused. Now the Ninth Circuit majority says count them anyway, and the only answer from Governor Gavin Newsom is five mocking question marks.
Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote those words in a dissent that exposed the entire Ninth Circuit ruling. A 2-1 majority—Judges Bennett and Sanchez—sided with California and ordered roughly 20,000 suspected noncitizen ballots counted, even though Los Angeles County could not produce any evidence that it independently verifies citizenship. A sample the county itself described as nearly 40 percent U.S.-born came back from federal systems with none of those individuals confirmed as citizens. Not one judge in the majority said those 20,000 people are citizens. Not one.
This is not a paperwork dispute. The Trump Justice Department gave California 48 hours to segregate the 20,000 flagged ballots before they were mixed with millions of honest votes. California refused. Once a mail ballot is separated from its envelope and dropped into the general count, there is no method left to pull a suspect noncitizen vote back out. That is the entire ballgame, and Governor Gavin Newsom responded with five question marks while it happened: "Really embarrassing, guys. Time to go back to law school?????" A sitting governor laughing at the principle that only American citizens should choose America's representatives.
The Ninth Circuit majority used two lines to justify it. Judge David Carter claimed segregating the ballots would "wreak havoc," so count first and prosecute illegal voters later. Judges Bennett and Sanchez told the DOJ to take its suggestion to Congress. Judge Bumatay's dissent answered with the only honest legal logic: when citizenship is unknown, the burden cannot fall on American citizens to prove their votes were not diluted.
Todd Blanche said it plainly: "State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America." Now the DOJ appeal is moving toward the Supreme Court, and Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter has put all fifty states on notice to preserve every ballot, pollbook, and record for 22 months or face jail time. The legal collision is now unavoidable: California wants the suspect ballots counted and mixed; the federal government wants them checked; the Ninth Circuit majority chose count now and check never; and no one—not the state, not the county, not the two-judge majority—can say those 20,000 people are citizens.
This fight is bigger than one stack of ballots. It is a deliberate move to make election verification impossible, to force courts to treat mixed ballots as irreversible, and to smear any demand for citizenship proof as an attack on democracy. The Ninth Circuit just refused to check 20,000 noncitizen ballots. The Supreme Court will now decide whether "let's check" survives in American elections or whether "don't you dare check" becomes the permanent rule. Watch this report for the exact names, the exact quotes, and the legal war over whether your honest vote still counts.
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