Judge Eleanor Ross, appointed to the U.S. District Court in Georgia by President Barack Obama, committed a felony when she lied to a federal official about carrying on an extramarital affair in her judicial chambers over a series of years. She was identified by Bloomberg Law and her misconduct is detailed in a report by a special committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The history and past application of the Impeachment Clause puts such unlawful conduct well within that provision.
Here’s what happened. Eleventh Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor received a complaint from a law clerk that Ross, married to a state court judge, was having sex with a law enforcement officer in her own office “during working hours and within hearing distance of the judge’s clerks.” According to the “Amended Final Report” of the investigative committee Pryor convened, Ross not only denied the affair, but falsely claimed that the law clerk had been “repeatedly chastised” over performance issues, for “arriving at the office late” and wearing “casual” attire, and this was just the clerk’s way of getting back at the judge.
Unfortunately for Ross, however, other clerks also complained about hearing “kissing sounds and other noises consistent with intimate activity,” creating an “awkward working environment” and making the clerks “very uncomfortable” and “unsettled.” It appears that Ross was too busy to do her basic judicial duties since the clerks complained that, while she failed to mentor them or edit or properly “supervise” their “written work product,” she displayed “visible anger, including yelling and cursing” at the clerks.
But there’s more. Security logs corroborated that the police official, identified as Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Kelley Collier, visited Ross’s chambers for the alleged trysts. After the committee’s in-depth investigation, including gathering emails and text messages, Ross finally admitted in a “supplemental response” that she had lied to Chief Judge Pryor and, in fact, had had “sexual intercourse” with Collier in her office in the Richard B. Russell Federal Building.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the investigation also revealed that Ross had attended an election victory party for, of all people, the disgraced, ethically challenged Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Ross complained the next day that she “had too many martinis the night before” at an event for a district attorney, went home, and didn’t return to work.
Beyond simply marshaling the facts, though, it’s essential to grasp what those facts mean. First, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it is a felony to “knowingly and willfully” make “any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” on any “matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch” of the federal government.
Second, the Code of Conduct for United States Judges states in Canon 2 that a “judge should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities.” Canon 5 says that a “judge should refrain from political activity.”
Third, Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that all “civil Officers of the United States” shall be “removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
It’s obvious that Ross is guilty of a felony and of violating the judicial code of conduct. She not only broke the law, but created serious concerns about her judicial ethics, her morality, and her judgment. If she refuses to remove herself from the bench, Congress should do it for her by House impeachment and Senate conviction.
The Constitution’s Framers borrowed impeachment from the English system as a way of removing public officials whose continued service has become incompatible with the duties of their office and the trust of the public. Fifteen of the 21 individuals impeached in American history were judges, and the specific charges in the articles of impeachment varied, some including conduct that broke the law while others did not. Some included abuse of official duties while others involved personal behavior.
The House, for example, impeached U.S. District Judge Mark Delahay in February 1873 on charges of intoxication on the bench. The articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent in 2009 included obstructing and impeding a federal investigation and making false and misleading statements. Sound familiar? Both Delahay and Kent resigned before their Senate impeachment trial began. Ross should not even let it get that far.
The Eleventh Circuit’s Judicial Council accepted the findings of the special committee that Ross 1) engaged in an extramarital affair and sexual activity in chambers; 2) made false statements, including to Pryor, and 3) attended a partisan political event. Yet the Eleventh Circuit merely issued a “private” reprimand. All Ross is required to do is issue letters of apology to her law clerks, agree to “forgo service as chief judge” of the Northern District should she be “be otherwise eligible,” and “indefinitely” refrain from serving on any Judicial Conference committee.”
The integrity of the federal judiciary, and the already weakening public trust in the courts, is worth more than that. She not only broke the law when she lied during the investigation and violated the judicial conduct code, but she engaged in deplorable actions in her chambers, made maliciously false claims against her law clerks, and egregiously violated the public trust gifted to her as federal judge.
Her actions merit impeachment and removal if she doesn’t resign. Voluntarily or not, she has to go.
Hans von Spakovsky and Thomas Jipping are senior legal fellows in the Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom
