Judge Ross Recuses From DOJ’s Georgia Voter Roll Lawsuit (2)

A federal judge who was reprimanded for misconduct recused herself from hearing the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Georgia voter rolls.

US District Judge Eleanor Ross said in a Monday order that she believed recusal was appropriate “based on the unique facts of this case,” after she was found to have improperly attended a primary election party for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who charged President Donald Trump and others over attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss.

The Justice Department had asked Ross to step back from the case in a May 29 filing, pointing to Bloomberg Law’s report that she is the federal judge who was privately reprimanded by a judicial council for misconduct, including attending the party.

“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 government filing said.

Ross said she disagreed with DOJ’s argument that a reasonable observer would view her attendance at the party as favoring the Democratic Party, and that recusal wouldn’t be required because the case is about the “federal government’s ability to enforce voting integrity laws, not partisan politics.”

But Ross said that this specific case does require her recusal, as both the Trump administration’s current work on election integrity and Willis’ earlier 2020 election charges against Trump “have become heavily polarized.”

That meant she couldn’t “discount the potential” that her attendance at the campaign event “would lead an objective observer to perceive that the undersigned supports Willis’s position,” the judge said.

“And perceived support of Willis’s position on election integrity could cause an objective observer to significantly doubt the undersigned’s impartiality in this case,” Ross said, adding that she was disqualifying herself from the case “out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias.”

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department whose division filed the lawsuit, said in a social media post that she was glad “to see that our specific legal arguments and common sense prevailed in this motion.”

Legal experts said that Ross could face other recusal requests tied to her misconduct.

Ross was also found to have had sex in chambers in earshot of law clerks, as she had an affair with a commander in the Atlanta Police Department.

An Atlanta man indicted last year for conspiring to commit fraud and other offenses, who is representing himself, filed a request asking Ross to recuse herself from his case, citing her affair. Ross granted his request to postpone his case proceedings and said in a Tuesday docket order that she’ll take his recusal request “under advisement.”

The case is The United States of America v. Raffensperger, N.D. Ga., No. 1:26-cv-00485