A federal judge in Georgia has formally recused herself from a federal election records case after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sought her voluntary ouster from the legal proceeding.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross signed the order June 15, but it became public on June 16.
The DOJ had argued that Ross’s attendance at a political event in 2024 for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Donald Trump for allegedly interfering with the 2020 presidential election, created the appearance that the judge was biased against Trump.
The Georgia Supreme Court declined to review the ruling, leaving the disqualification intact. A replacement prosecutor then dismissed the remaining charges against Trump and his co-defendants in November 2025.
The DOJ filed the underlying lawsuit under the federal Civil Rights Act of 1960 to obtain the unredacted statewide voter registration list from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The department has said it needs the list to investigate the state’s compliance with the voter list maintenance requirements established under two federal statutes—the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
Trump, a Republican, has long alleged that election improprieties in Georgia contributed to his loss in that state in the 2020 presidential election.
Without identifying Ross by name, a judicial council found that a judge ran afoul of judicial conduct rules by attending what it called a campaign event for a Democratic district attorney candidate who was “best known for prosecuting a Republican President” over alleged interference in the 2020 election. Her attendance, confirmed by media reports, could undermine public confidence and leave an appearance of bias in the Trump administration’s lawsuit, the motion said.
Ross acknowledged the second argument the DOJ made in its motion, which was that a reasonable observer would interpret her attendance as “an endorsement of Willis’s actions while in office,” and question her impartiality to decide “a case in which [Trump’s] Department of Justice seeks voter rolls in an effort to ensure election integrity.”
The court “concludes that recusal is appropriate for the second reason the United States advances,” she wrote.
Ross wrote that although the judicial council said her attendance at the Willis campaign event may have “only [been] for the purpose of reuniting with former colleagues,” she could not “discount the potential” that “an objective observer [could] perceive that the undersigned supports Willis’ position.”
“Therefore, out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias, the undersigned will disqualify herself from further proceedings in this case,” she wrote, quoting a Supreme Court precedent that said, “What matters is not the reality of bias or prejudice but its appearance.”
Separately, Ross was reprimanded by the 11th Circuit Judicial Council last week for conducting an extramarital affair with a high-ranking law enforcement officer in her judge’s chambers within earshot of staff. She sent letters to several of her former law clerks apologizing for what she described as her “harmful, offensive, and unprofessional behavior.”
