ATLANTA — Two Republican members of Congress from Georgia have filed impeachment resolutions targeting a federal judge in Atlanta who faced discipline following an investigation that confirmed she engaged in sexual activity with a police officer in her chambers, participated in a partisan political gathering, and provided false information to investigators examining the alleged wrongdoing.
U.S. Reps. Clay Fuller and Andrew Clyde submitted the resolutions against U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross. Clyde posted on social media Tuesday that Ross’ “deeply disturbing actions prove she is incapable of displaying integrity or impartiality. She must be impeached and removed from the bench.”
The House Judiciary Committee holds the authority to determine whether to begin impeachment proceedings against Ross. Federal judges receive lifetime appointments and can only be removed through the impeachment process.
When contacted Tuesday afternoon, a person answering the phone at the judge’s chambers stated that Ross had no comment.
Ross received her nomination to the Northern District of Georgia in January 2014 from then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and gained Senate confirmation in November that same year. She previously held a position as a state court judge in DeKalb County, which encompasses a small portion of Atlanta, beginning in 2011. Prior to her judicial career, she spent more than ten years working as both a state and federal prosecutor, primarily in Atlanta.
The investigation into Ross started when one of her law clerks reported that the judge had repeatedly engaged in sexual conduct with a high-ranking uniformed police officer in her office while staff could hear. Additional allegations included improper supervision of clerks and an incident where she shouted and used profanity toward staff members.
Ross was issued a “private reprimand” following the investigation that substantiated the sexual activity and determined she attended a partisan event and initially provided false denials of the accusations.
The court’s investigation kept the judge’s identity and court location within the 11th Circuit’s jurisdiction confidential, which covers Alabama, Florida and Georgia. A person knowledgeable about the situation who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information verified to The Associated Press that Ross was the judge who faced discipline.
Additionally, the Atlanta Police Department announced it has launched an investigation to establish whether the “high-ranking law enforcement officer” determined to have engaged in sexual activity with a federal judge in the judge’s chambers belongs to their department.
William Pryor, the chief judge of the 11th Circuit, initiated the original investigation of Ross. He requested her response to the clerk’s allegations and she answered the same day, “specifically denied” each claim. In a subsequent email the following day, the judge suggested to Pryor that the law clerk might have fabricated the allegations as revenge for being required to work in the office.
Pryor designated a special committee to conduct the investigation. That investigation received detailed documentation in a report included with the disciplinary order.
The committee’s examination of logs and security footage revealed an officer had regularly visited the judge’s chambers in uniform during lunch hours. Six clerks remembered seeing someone matching the officer’s description, with three recalling they overheard what could have been sexual activity in the judge’s office.
Three clerks recalled bringing summer interns on their initial day to observe the judge conducting a hearing in a criminal case. Immediately afterward, they informed the committee, the judge refused to have lunch with the interns, admitting to consuming too many martinis the previous night at a primary election victory celebration for a district attorney friend.
The clerks reported the judge failed to provide adequate guidance and “rarely, if ever, substantively edited civil orders the clerks drafted.” While clerks described an “eggshell culture,” the committee found no evidence of abusive conduct.
The judge eventually confessed to maintaining an extramarital sexual relationship with the officer but rejected the allegations regarding staff mistreatment, the committee documented. The judge acknowledged to the committee attending a “mixer” of former employees from a district attorney’s office where the judge previously worked but claimed it occurred in a separate room from the victory party.
