The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion Friday asking a federal judge to recuse herself from a Georgia election records case, arguing that her prior ties to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis make impartial proceedings impossible.
The judge is U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of Atlanta, a Barack Obama nominee confirmed by the Senate in November 2014. Ross is currently presiding over a Justice Department lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, over access to the state’s statewide voter registration lists, the Associated Press reports.
The DOJ’s motion points to Ross’s reported attendance at an event honoring Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who gained national attention after indicting former President Donald Trump and more than a dozen associates in a 2020 Georgia election interference case. Ross previously worked in the Fulton County DA’s office alongside Willis before Willis became district attorney.
“Judge Ross has no comment right now,” a court spokesperson said. A person who answered the phone in Ross’s chambers Friday said the judge was unavailable.
A hearing in the Raffensperger case was scheduled for Wednesday. The Justice Department has asked the court to delay that proceeding until the recusal question is resolved.
The recusal request comes layered on top of separate, documented misconduct findings. The 11th Circuit Judicial Council issued a private reprimand to an unnamed federal judge after an investigation found the judge had sex with a uniformed law enforcement officer inside a courthouse within earshot of staff, attended a partisan political event, and initially denied the allegations when confronted. The reprimand was issued in February. The Judicial Conference of the United States affirmed the action on May 22.
The investigation report did not publicly identify the judge. The Justice Department’s recusal motion relies on media reports identifying Ross as the subject of the disciplinary finding. The 11th Circuit oversees federal courts in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.
Federal judges serve for life and can be removed only through congressional impeachment. Short of removal, the disciplinary options are limited: censure, public or private reprimands, and temporary reassignment of cases.
The lawsuit at the center of the recusal dispute is part of a broader federal push. The DOJ has sued multiple states demanding access to their statewide voter rolls. Raffensperger has argued that Georgia law bars disclosure of voters’ confidential personal information unless certain legal requirements are satisfied. He says he turned over the public portion of the state’s voter file to the federal government in December.
Ross was nominated by Obama in January 2014. Prior to taking the bench, she spent more than a decade as a state and federal prosecutor in Atlanta.
