Link to Fani Willis Leads to Federal Judge Recusal in Georgia Voter Rolls Case

A federal judge who attended a political event of a prosecutor who once pursued charges against then-former President Donald Trump recused herself from a case in which the Justice Department is seeking Georgia voter registration data.

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia granted the Justice Department’s motion to step aside from the case after the department noted she attended a partisan political event for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who led grand jury charges against Donald Trump and allies over alleged conspiracy related to his challenge of the 2020 election outcome in Georgia.

“Judge Ross has granted our motion to recuse in the Georgia voter rolls litigation,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon posted on X Tuesday. She added, “Glad to see that our specific legal arguments and common sense prevailed in this motion.”

The Justice Department referred to a reprimand from the U.S. 11th Circuit Judicial Conduct Committee. The reprimand only identified Ross as a “subject judge,” 11Alive in Atlanta reported.

In 2024, Ross, nominated to the court by President Barack Obama in late 2013 and confirmed by the Senate in 2014, attended Willis’ 2024 campaign victory party. Ross said her attendance was only for the purpose of “reuniting” with past colleagues and that she did not speak at the event.

“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 argued in its motion for the judge to recuse.

Ross wrote, “even assuming that an objective observer would construe the undersigned’s attendance at the mixer as favoring the Democratic Party, recusal on this basis is not required because this case concerns the federal government’s ability to enforce voting integrity laws, not partisan politics.”

Nevertheless, she wrote she was recusing herself out of an “abundance of caution.”

“Specifically, this case concerns the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain Georgia’s unredacted voter registration list in furtherance of the administration’s objective to uphold election integrity in Georgia, and Willis is known for her role in the prosecution of President Trump over his alleged interference in Georgia’s elections,” Ross wrote. “Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized.”

The Justice Department sued to obtain the Georgia voter rolls in December. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, argued state law allows only partial data sharing and does not permit the release of Social Security numbers or dates of birth.