The Department of Justice has asked an Obama-appointed federal judge, embroiled in judicial misconduct, to recuse herself from its election records lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
The request for recusal on Friday pertains to U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross and her alleged improper appearance at an event honoring Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who once prosecuted President Donald Trump for alleged interference in the 2020 election. While the court did not publicly announce which judge appeared at Fani Willis’ rally in its initial report, the DOJ believes the judge is Ross based on news reports.
The 11th Judicial Circuit determined Ross engaged in judicial misconduct by attending the partisan event promoting Willis’s 2024 campaign. The district attorney won her reelection bid that year.
“This reported misconduct necessitates Judge Ross’s recusal because, if Judge Ross is indeed the Subject Judge, it creates the appearance of bias,” the DOJ said in the court filing signed by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.
“A judge who attended a party celebrating the election of a Democrat best known for prosecuting a Republican President for alleged election interference cannot then preside over a case concerning that President’s efforts to ensure election integrity,” the Justice Department’s memo continued.
The Washington Examiner contacted the 11th Judicial Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia for comment. Ross serves on the Atlanta-based federal court.
The judge has also come under fire for reportedly having sex with a high-ranking Atlanta police officer in her court chambers, where her staff could hear the sexual tryst.
The DOJ said its recusal request did not concern the incident.
“The Final Report also found other instances of misconduct—namely, ‘improper sexual activity in chambers with a law enforcement officer’ and ‘lack of candor’ during the investigation of the Judicial Complaint—but those are not the subject of this Motion,” the filing states.
In 2014, then-President Barack Obama nominated Ross for the federal bench. She was confirmed by the Senate later that year. Before then, she served as a state judge in DeKalb County for three years and worked as a state and federal prosecutor for more than a decade.
Ross scheduled a hearing in the DOJ’s case against Raffensperger for June 3, but that hearing could be delayed if the department’s recusal request is granted.
Georgia is one of many states that the DOJ is suing over their voter rolls.
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As the defendant, Raffensperger argues that state law prohibits the release of voters’ confidential personal information unless the federal government meets certain conditions. The Republican official sent a publicly available portion of the statewide voter roll to the DOJ in December, but he refuses to hand over the rest of the voting information.
Willis previously charged Trump and his allies with attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, but a Fulton County Superior Court judge dismissed the criminal case a year after Trump won the 2024 election.
