The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Atlanta to step aside from a Georgia election-records case.
The judge, according to the Associated Press and the reporting cited in the DOJ motion, is U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia.
The reason is not a routine scheduling conflict. It traces back to a judicial misconduct order that was recently affirmed by the federal judiciary’s own oversight body.
That order described conduct so far outside the bounds of the bench that the committee itself called it grossly lacking in judgment.
Andy Ngo flagged the core public-confidence problem: the discipline was private even after the findings became public:
A DEI federal judge appointed by President Obama has received only a private reprimand for repeatedly having sex with a man inside the judge’s chambers during court business hours.
Judge Eleanor Ross, of the Northern District of Georgia, agreed to write apology letters to her… pic.twitter.com/K31K03GN3w
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 29, 2026
Here is the careful part, and it matters for how you read this story.
The official court documents from the misconduct proceeding did not name the judge.
The Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability issued its decision without publicly attaching a name to the reprimand.
The identification comes from media reporting. The Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reason have reported that the DOJ recusal motion relies on news accounts tying the reprimand to Ross.
The Associated Press reported on the Justice Department’s move to remove the judge from the Georgia matter.
The underlying misconduct findings are what give this story its weight.
According to the committee’s order, the reprimand involved sexual conduct in chambers, attendance at a partisan event, and false statements.
Sit with that phrase. It comes from the judiciary policing itself, not from a political opponent.
The same institution that lectures the country about impartiality, about the appearance of fairness, about keeping politics off the bench, produced a private reprimand for exactly the kind of conduct it warns everyone else against.
And now the question lands in a Georgia election case, where the appearance of fairness is not a footnote.
Voter-rolls disputes go to the heart of whether people trust the count.
If a judge handling that kind of case carries a misconduct record involving a partisan event and false statements, the recusal request is not a stretch. It is the obvious move.
Matt Van Swol connected the scandal to Ross’s high-profile history on the bench, including the Todd Chrisley case:
🚨WHAT THE HELL?!!!
The Obama-appointed federal judge who sent Todd Chrisley to prison was caught having LOUD S*X in her chambers during work hours for 2 YEARS, LIED to investigators about it, and got NOTHING but a “private reprimand.”
Read that again.
Her name is Judge… pic.twitter.com/26ayXu5uyi
— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) May 29, 2026
None of this requires inventing motives.
The committee’s own language does the work. The DOJ is simply pointing at it and asking that the case be heard by someone the public can trust without an asterisk.
That is the whole point of recusal. It exists so litigants do not have to wonder.
The court documents kept the name out.
The reporting put it back in.
The Justice Department built its motion on that reporting.
A federal judiciary that demands the country accept its rulings as neutral cannot privately reprimand a judge for conduct it calls grossly lacking in judgment and then act surprised when prosecutors ask that same judge to step back from an election case.
The Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability summarized the misconduct findings and the conflict concern this way:
The Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit issued an Order on February 11, 2026, finding that the subject judge engaged in judicial misconduct by: (1) engaging in an extramarital affair with a high-ranking law enforcement officer and having sexual intercourse in the judge’s chambers during business hours within hearing distance of staff; (2) attending a partisan political event; and (3) making false statements to the Chief Circuit Judge and Chief District Judge that were material to the investigation of the allegations.
On multiple occasions, during business hours, the subject judge and the police officer engaged in sexual intercourse in the subject judge’s chambers within earshot of the subject judge’s staff.
Moreover, during the period in which the affair was ongoing, the police department was involved in numerous criminal and civil cases being litigated in the district.
The subject judge did not disclose the affair to any other judge, member of court staff, or litigating party.
Although the special committee did not find any instance of the subject judge presiding over a case in which either the officer or the police department was a party or a witness, the special committee found that this was due to “happenstance” rather than the subject judge’s efforts to mitigate any potential conflict.
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