An embattled federal judge has stepped off a case involving Georgia election records.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross filed an order recusing herself following a motion by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to remove her.
The DOJ cited her alleged attendance at a Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis campaign event and raised questions about her ability to be impartial.
Willis prosecuted President Donald Trump in August 2023 after obtaining an indictment against him and 18 others.
They were accused of partaking in a broad scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results that had elected former President Joe Biden. The case against Trump was dismissed in November 2025.
“Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized,” Ross said in her order.
She added that an objective observer might interpret her attendance at a Willis event as support for the district attorney’s position even if Ross only attended to reunite with former colleagues.
The case that Ross had presided over until now was filed by the DOJ, which sought an unredacted statewide voter list from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who ran for governor as a Republican this year but was defeated.
Ross said on June 16 that she was removing herself from the case "out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias."
She was previously reprimanded following an 11th Judicial Circuit court investigation, which determined there were sexual relations in the courthouse between Ross and a high-ranking uniformed police officer.
The incident allegedly occurred within earshot of staff.
In a June 11 letter, Ross wrote that her “actions were patently wrong, and there is no excuse. You deserved better than to have your experience marred by my own offensive conflict."
Last month, the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the U.S. Judicial Conference affirmed an order by the Judicial Council of the 11th Judicial Circuit, which includes Alabama, Florida and Georgia, that Ross would receive a private reprimand.
The investigation results further determined that Ross had initially lied to deny the allegations that she’d attended an event hosted by Willis’s campaign.
Willis has been a friend of Ross since 1999, according to Ross, who acknowledged having attended a private mixer held on the sidelines of the event to visit with former district attorney office colleagues.
Ross previously worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2011.