A federal judge on Tuesday disqualified herself from hearing the U.S. Department of Justice’s bid to force the state of Georgia to turn over a copy of its non-public voter registration list after she was reprimanded for having sex with a police officer in her chambers and for attending a political event.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross in Atlanta agreed to step aside based on her attendance at an event hosted by the campaign of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat who had previously criminally prosecuted U.S. President Donald Trump for alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election.
Her appearance at Willis’ event became public after the 11th Circuit Judicial Council reprimanded Ross for attending the event, as well as for having an extramarital affair with a high-ranking police officer whom she had sex with within earshot of her law clerks.
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The Justice Department argued that Ross’s appearance at an election-related event for a Democrat best known for prosecuting the Republican president for alleged election interference meant she “cannot then preside over a case concerning that President’s efforts to ensure election integrity.”
The lawsuit is one of around 30 that the Justice Department under Trump has filed against states seeking unredacted voter files that contain their driver’s license numbers and last four digits of their Social Security numbers, claiming such data is needed to probe their compliance with federal election laws.
Ross, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, concluded an objective observer might presume that she supports Willis’ views on Georgia’s election integrity because she attended the event, creating an appearance of bias.
“Perceived support of Willis’s position on election integrity could cause an objective observer to significantly doubt the undersigned’s impartiality in this case,” she wrote.
Following her decision, the case was reassigned to U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden.
Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a social media post on X, said Ross’s decision came only after the department threatened on Monday to ask the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene after she “didn’t voluntarily recuse from our high-profile election integrity case.”
The order marked the latest fallout from the judicial misconduct case against Ross, who some Republican lawmakers are seeking to have impeached and removed from office.
The judge, who before joining the bench served in the same office Willis now leads, last week sent new letters of apology to several of her former law clerks, expressing regret for her “harmful, offensive, and unprofessional behavior.”
Willis in 2023 charged Trump and 18 co-defendants over what she alleged was a sweeping criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results after he was defeated by Biden in his re-election bid.
An appeals court removed Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, from the case in 2024. The court said she had created an “appearance of impropriety” by having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case.
Following her removal, the case was dismissed in 2025 after Trump returned to the White House by another prosecutor who took it over.
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