Editor’s note: March 24 at 5 p.m.: This story has been updated to reflect updates from the court. Earlier updates included additional information from the county, Sheriff Chad Bianco and the California Secretary of State.
An emergency petition filed Monday by Attorney General Rob Bonta asking the California court of appeal to stop Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigation into last November’s statewide special election to “prevent further abuse of the criminal process,” has been denied.
According to the order, Bonta failed to demonstrate why he chose to file the petition at the appellate level instead of in the superior court.
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) said, in an email to The Record, that the facts of the case had not changed and that the denial was “based solely on where we filed the case and is not a ruling on the underlying merits of the petition.”
The DOJ said it was evaluating next steps to “ensure a swift and appropriate resolution to this matter.”
“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office is not equipped nor legally authorized to play the role of elections monitor,” Bonta said in a Monday statement sent to The Riverside Record. “By all appearances, this investigation is little more than a fishing expedition meant to sow distrust and undermine public confidence in our elections.”
Bonta’s filing also revealed that the sheriff obtained a third search warrant on March 19, 2026 in addition to the search warrants he obtained on February 9 and February 23.
“The Sheriff’s actions—launching an unprecedented criminal investigation into the special election without identifying any particular crime that may have been committed by anyone, and openly defying the Attorney General’s lawful directives—demand immediate judicial intervention,” Bonta said in the petition. “Absent swift action by this court, the sheriff’s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence in the upcoming primary and general elections, not just in Riverside County but around the State.”
Bonta also said the California Secretary of State’s Office was “willing to review the sheriff’s allegations,” in an effort to put to rest any lingering concerns about elections in the county.
“The California Secretary of State is actively working on a productive path forward with Riverside County officials that includes appropriate subject matter expertise,” the agency said in a statement to The Record. “We are confident that this process will conclusively address concerns regarding the accuracy of ballots cast and counted in Riverside County.”
The filing is the latest in a bitter back and forth between Bonta and Bianco over the sheriff’s investigation into what he has called alleged election irregularities, first reported by The Record.
According to the court filing, Bonta asked the court to issue an immediate order temporarily stopping Bianco’s investigation, including the sheriff’s ballot recount. Bonta asked the court to set an expedited briefing schedule and after the parties have filed briefs, issue a permanent order requiring the sheriff to comply with the Attorney General’s directives in connection with the investigation, and requiring the Riverside County Superior Court to cancel the March 19 warrant as legally insufficient or, alternatively, staying further execution of the March 19 warrant and any related orders pending review by Bonta’s office.
Bianco, in a video posted to social media late Monday evening where he called Bonta an “embarrassment to law enforcement,” said the suit was another display of political corruption in the state.
“Why in the world would [Bonta] want that count stopped, unless he was afraid of what that count would uncover,” he said. “We have an extremely politically biased appeals court, so this is going to be interesting.”
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Bianco, who is running for governor, elaborated on those comments in an interview with The Record calling the move “astonishing.”
“It’s absolutely astonishing to me that the attorney general would halt or stop an investigation or to go court to try to get it to end, and basically sweep it under the rug,” he said. “This investigation is very, very simple: We’re investigating an allegation of a 45,000 ballot discrepancy.”
The DOJ, in the filing, alleged that not only was the March 19 warrant obtained “in direct violation” of Bonta’s directives, but that it also failed to meet basic statutory and constitutional standards.
All three search warrants have been sealed by the Riverside Superior Court.
Bonta’s filing also claimed that Bianco and his department routinely failed to comply with a number of the DOJ’s directives, despite assurances to the contrary, which Bonta argued were lawfully made under his authority to direct the sheriff’s activities “relative to the investigation or detection of crime.”
As part of the court filings, the DOJ included a series of exchanges between Bonta, his agents and the sheriff, in which the sheriff indicated that he would comply with the agency’s demands to provide documents related to the investigation and to pause further action until the DOJ had the opportunity to “review the factual and legal basis” of the investigation.
The sheriff also informed the DOJ that his department was unable to obtain legal representation from county counsel, which a county official told The Record was representing the county and the Registrar of Voters.
“County counsel does not represent the sheriff’s department, it never has,” Bianco said in an interview with The Record. “County counsel represents the board of supervisors, and the board of supervisors’ best interests are not necessarily the best interests of county residents and not necessarily the best interests of the sheriff’s office.”
Instead, Bianco said his department would be represented in the matter by Murrieta-based attorney Bob Tyler, who he described as one of RSO’s “local outside attorneys.”
Tyler, who is representing RSO through his private law firm, is also the president and chief counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom (AFF), a nonprofit law firm that on its website said it is “dedicated to protecting constitutional and religious liberty in the courts.”
The firm’s cases include defending the critical race theory ban adopted by Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD), two cases seeking to ban transgender girls from participating in girls sports at the high school level and a lawsuit filed on behalf of the nonprofit Election Integrity Project California (EIPCa) that alleged there were serious discrepancies in the 2022 election.
The election lawsuit was dismissed, one of the suits involving transgender athletes was dismissed — though AFF is requesting reconsideration — and dismissal has been requested for the second. The remaining suit is working its way through the appeals process, but a judge ruled that while that happens, TVUSD could not implement the ban.
Tyler donated $500 to the sheriff’s campaign for governor last August, according to election filings. He did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
On Monday, District 1 Supervisor Jose Medina renewed his call for Bianco to take a leave of absence during his gubernatorial campaign and further indicated that he would like to see an investigation into what he felt was a misuse of funds by the sheriff.
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The most important part of the story isn’t being reported. Bianco is part of the Constitutional Sheriffs movement. Most voters have never heard of it. They hear “constitutional duty” and assume it means fidelity to law. It doesn’t. In this framework, a sheriff’s authority flows from God through the Constitution, placing him outside traditional legal constraints and allowing him to decide which laws apply. Seizing an entire county’s ballots is consistent with that worldview. This is not a minor detail. In 2023, Bianco received the “American Sheriff Award” from The Claremont Institute, the same institute associated with John Eastman, one of the central figures in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. This connection belongs in every story about this. It isn’t.
Thank you for the info & keeping informed!!