The controversial federal judge who was caught having sex with a police officer in her courthouse chambers, attending Democratic Party political events, and lying to investigators about both has finally been forced off a major Georgia voter records case.
U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, an Obama appointee serving on the Northern District of Georgia, filed a recusal order Tuesday and stepped aside from the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
The suit seeks an unredacted statewide voter list that includes names, dates of birth, addresses, and partial Social Security numbers… a list which Raffensperger’s office has refused to hand over, citing state privacy law.
The DOJ’s motion to disqualify her was blunt: Ross had attended the 2024 election night victory party for Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Yes, the same disgraced Fani Willis who obtained a sweeping RICO indictment against President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in August 2023. That case was dismissed in November 2025.
“Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized,” Rosswrote. She said she “cannot discount” that an objective observer might interpret her attendance at a Willis campaign event as support for the district attorney’s position — even if her stated purpose was to reconnect with former colleagues.
Ross and Willis have been friends “since 1999,” Ross wrote. Before becoming a federal judge, Ross worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, where she overlapped with Willis before Willis was elected DA.
The victory for the Trump administration comes against the backdrop of Ross’s already deeply tarnished record. The 11th Circuit Judicial Council privately reprimanded her earlier this year after an investigation found she had loud sex frequently inside her courthouse chambers with Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Kelley Collier during work hours. The noise often disturbed law clerks, some of whom left work early because of what they overheard.
Republican Georgia Reps. Clay Fuller and Andrew Clyde have filed formal articles of impeachment against Ross, and the House Judiciary Committee now weighing whether to proceed.
“She must be impeached and removed from the bench,” Clyde posted on X.
The Georgia voter records case has been reassigned to U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert, a Biden appointee.
The DOJ has filed similar voter roll lawsuits against 30 states as part of a broader election integrity push. Eight of those cases have already been dismissed by other judges.