A federal judge in Atlanta has stepped aside from a major Trump administration voting lawsuit after an ethics investigation found she attended a campaign victory party for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, an Obama appointee to the Northern District of Georgia, recused herself Monday from a Department of Justice suit seeking to compel Georgia to turn over its voter rolls to the federal government.
“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 wrote in her recusal order. “Therefore, out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias, the undersigned will disqualify herself from further proceedings in this case.”
Ross and Willis both previously worked at the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. An ethics investigation found Ross attended Willis’ primary election victory party while serving as a sitting federal judge. Federal judicial ethics rules bar judges from engaging in political activity. Court records note that Ross remarked the following morning that she had drunk “too many martinis” the night before.
The same investigation surfaced additional misconduct allegations against Ross. Investigators found she had carried on a two-year affair with a high-ranking police officer in her judicial district and engaged in sexual conduct inside her judicial chambers. Ross initially denied the allegations before later recanting her denial.
The Justice Department formally moved for Ross’s removal from the case after her attendance at the Willis event became public. Ross acknowledged in her order that she did not attend the party for political reasons, but conceded the appearance of bias was too significant to ignore.
Willis earned national attention for criminally charging President Trump and several of his allies with an alleged racketeering conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. That case was later dismissed after it came to light that Willis had entered a romantic relationship with the outside attorney she personally hired to lead the prosecution.
The DOJ voter roll lawsuit is part of a broader federal effort to audit state election records and verify voter registration data.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon welcomed the recusal. “Glad to see that our specific legal arguments and common sense prevailed in this motion,” Dhillon wrote on X.
The case will now be reassigned to a different judge in the Northern District of Georgia.
