DOJ seeks Judge Eleanor Ross recusal in Georgia election case

The Department of Justice on Friday asked Georgia federal judge Eleanor Ross to recuse herself from a pending case involving election records, citing media reports identifying Ross as the same judge who was disciplined for attending a victory party for a district attorney’s campaign.

The DOJ said that if Ross is that judge, “it creates the appearance of bias,” because the victory party would have been in May 2024 for Fulton County DA Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Donald Trump for an alleged conspiracy to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss in Georgia to former President Joe Biden.

“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 DOJ said in the motion for Ross’ recusal, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

The DOJ does not claim in the filing to have independently identified Ross, 58, as the judge who was disciplined, and CNBC has not confirmed that she is the judge.

CNBC this week asked two of Ross’s clerks to ask her to confirm to a reporter whether she is the judge disciplined by the Judicial Council.

Ross did not respond to those queries.

“The Eleventh Circuit’s Judicial Council found that a ‘Subject Judge’ committed judicial misconduct by attending a partisan and political event,” the filing noted.

The Eleventh Judicial Circuit comprises federal courts in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. Ross has served as a federal judge since 2014, when she was nominated by then-President Barack Obama.

The DOJ is suing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger over his refusal to turn over election records to the Justice Department as part of a probe to ascertain the state’s compliance with federal election law.

The same disciplinary action that was taken against the unidentified judge by a judicial council found that the unidentified judge had engaged in extramarital sex in chambers with a high-ranking police officer in earshot of their staff, and initially falsely denied those allegations when confronted about them.

The 11th Circuit imposed sanctions on the unidentified judge, who agreed to them. The sanctions included ordering that they write letters of apology to six former law clerks who were interviewed in the probe; foregoing service as the chief judge in the federal district where they sit; and refraining from sitting on any Judicial Conference committee.

Ross is a former prosecutor in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, having served there as senior assistant district attorney from 1998 through 2002.

A photo of Willis’ former boyfriend, Nathan Wade, from her primary election victory party in May 2024 appears to show Ross standing in the background, holding what appears to be a martini glass.

The DOJ, in its recusal motion, noted that this week, “various news outlets identified Judge Ross as the Subject Judge” who was disciplined.

The motion quoted from disciplinary findings in the case of the unidentified judge.

“Three former clerks recalled the Subject Judge saying that the judge had
consumed martinis at a victory party for a District Attorney,” the DOJ quoted in its filing.

“Immediately after you presided over … a criminal hearing, you told an intern that you had too many martinis the night before at what may have been a political event for a District Attorney,” the quote continued.

The filing said that the DOJ “has found no reported decision involving a sitting federal judge attending an election party celebrating the victory of a candidate for partisan office.”

“In any event, Judge Ross must recuse herself from any case that an objective reasonable observer would construe as implicating partisan or electoral politics, including this case,” the filing said.