DOJ wants to recuse Judge Eleanor Ross from Georgia election case

The Justice Department on Friday asked Georgia federal judge Eleanor Ross to recuse herself in a pending case involving election records, citing media reports that identified Ross as the same judge who was punished for attending a state attorney’s campaign party.

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

“The judge who attended the celebration of the election of a Democrat who is best known for prosecuting a Republican President on allegations of election interference cannot preside over a case concerning the President’s efforts to ensure the integrity of the election,” the DOJ said in the decision to disqualify Ross, which was filed in US District Court in Atlanta.

The DOJ declined in the filing to identify Ross, 58, as the judge who was disciplined, and CNBC did not confirm that he is a judge.

CNBC this week asked two of Ross’ secretaries to ask him to confirm to a reporter whether he is a judge disciplined by the Judicial Council. Ross did not answer those questions.

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

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

The DOJ has sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger for refusing to hand over election records to the Justice Department as part of an investigation into the state’s compliance with federal election law.

A similar disciplinary action against an unnamed judge by the grand jury found that the unnamed juror engaged in extramarital sex at the home of a police officer within earshot of his staff, and initially denied the allegations when confronted.

The 11th Circuit granted sanctions to an undisclosed judge, who agreed. These punishments include ordering them to write a letter of apology to the six former law clerks who were interviewed in the investigation; prior service as a chief justice in the state in which they reside; and to refrain from sitting on any committee of the Judicial Conference.

Ross was a prosecutor in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, serving there as an assistant district attorney from 1998 to 2002.

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

The DOJ, in its motion to withdraw, noted that this week, “various media outlets identified Judge Ross as the Title Judge” who was disciplined.

The motion was cited in the disciplinary findings of an undisclosed jury trial.

“The three clerks remember that the Study Judge said the judge did it
ate martinis at the District Attorney’s victory party,” the DOJ cited in its filing.

“Soon after presiding over … a criminal trial, he told an intern that he had too many martinis the night before an event that may have been political for the District Attorney,” the citation continued.

The filing said the DOJ “has not found a reported decision involving a federal judge attending an election party celebrating a candidate’s victory.”

“In any event, Judge Ross must recuse himself from any case that a reasonably prudent person would consider to be politically partisan or electoral, including this case,” the lawsuit said.