Elise Stefanik files complaint against federal judge who ruled in Jan. 6, Trump cases

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) on Friday requested an ethics investigation into a federal judge who has ruled in cases linked to Jan. 6 rioters and former President Trump — and who is currently overseeing Trump ally Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial.

Stefanik claimed that U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell engaged in “judicial misconduct” during a speech she gave last month after accepting an award at a Women’s White Collar Defense Association gala. Stefanik called it a “highly inappropriate political speech.”

In the speech, Howell discussed the impact of “big lies” in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and quoted historian Heather Cox Richardson’s book “Democracy Awakening” that “big lies are springboards for authoritarians.” The judge did not mention Trump by name.

“We are having a very surprising and downright troubling moment in this country when the very importance of facts is dismissed or ignored,” Howell said in the speech. 

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) speaks with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the House Chamber following the second vote for Speaker of the House on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. (Greg Nash)

A staunch Trump ally, Stefanik criticized the comments as “unbecoming of a federal judge” and suggested a connection between Howell’s comment on authoritarianism and Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

“Judge Howell’s speech is plainly inappropriate, consisting of partisan statements, election interference and improper extrajudicial statements while criminal cases are pending — all barred by Canon 2B,” Stefanik wrote, referencing a judicial ethics guide.

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Howell was chief judge of the federal court in Washington, D.C., for seven years; she passed the baton to Judge James Boasberg, who became chief judge in March. While in that role, Howell oversaw the grand jury that heard evidence and later indicted Trump in his federal 2020 election subversion case.

Stefanik said in a statement to The Hill that she filed her complaint against Howell because “election interference by judges destroys public confidence in the federal judiciary, tears apart the fabric of our Republic and is illegal.” 

The judge is overseeing a defamation case brought by two former Georgia election workers against Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, after he accused them of 2020 election fraud. A jury began deliberating on the case Thursday.

A spokesperson for the court declined to comment on the matter. 

Howell is not the only judge linked to Trump and his allies that Stefanik has targeted with an ethics inquiry request. She filed a complaint last month against Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing Trump’s New York civil fraud trial, claiming he has shown “inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance” toward Trump.

Updated at 12:04 p.m.