Stefanik Ethics Complaint Against D.C. Judge Is Tossed

A Washington federal judge who lamented the impact of the “big lies” on Capitol rioters facing criminal charges didn’t breach judicial ethics rules, a federal judicial council has found.

The judicial council for the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed a complaint by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) against Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, related to a speech the judge delivered at a white collar defense attorney event in November 2023.

Howell said during the speech that she and her colleagues “regularly see the impact of big lies” at sentencing hearings for participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol. She also described “a very surprising and downright troubling moment where the importance of facts is dismissed, or ignored.”

Howell didn’t mention former President Donald Trump by name during her remarks.

Chief Judge Jerome A. Holmes of the Tenth Circuit held in a decision posted Monday that the judge’s comments “do not reasonably appear to reflect adversely on impartiality, nor could they lead to disqualification.”

Her perspective is “consistent” with those raised by her and other judges “on the record in numerous cases they presided over prior to the event at issue,” he wrote. Holmes also noted that Howell gave her speech at a “law-related event, not a political function,” and didn’t name any modern politicians.

The decision notes the misconduct complaint stemmed from within the Washington federal bench, but doesn’t name the federal judge, or who filed the complaint. However, the circumstances of the allegation align exactly with Stefanik’s complaint against Howell, including details of the speech and that the complaint was initially filed incorrectly.

Stefanik had announced her request for an ethics investigation into Howell in December 2023, shortly after her speech at the Women’s White Collar Defense Association’s gala where the judge was accepting an award.

Stefanik called it a “highly inappropriate political speech” constituting “election interference by a federal judge that undermines the public’s trust in our courts.”

The decision follows some back-and-forth between Stefanik’s office and the court over the initial complaint filing procedure.

Stefanik and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) followed up on the status of the complaint last year, claiming the court marked it as wrongly filed despite them having submitted the complaint “three times via regular mail and hand delivery.”

Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit responded that the court had notified Stefanik multiple times that materials were missing, and that it didn’t receive the full submission until months later.

The complaint was later transferred to the Tenth Circuit, according to the decision.

Howell has overseen criminal cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and earlier presided over some grand jury proceedings tied to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and to retain classified documents after leaving office.

She also oversaw the grand jury for former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 election.

Judge Howell and a spokesperson for the Washington federal trial court declined to comment. A spokesperson for Stefanik didn’t return a request for comment Monday.

The dismissal represents at least the second complaint against a Washington federal judge to be tossed this year over their public remarks.

Another appeals court judicial council threw out an ethics complaint in March by a conservative legal advocate against Judge Reggie Walton, who condemned threats against the judiciary in a television interview.