Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of Donald Trump’s staunchest supporters in Congress, has filed a complaint against Judge Beryl Howell, accusing her of delivering a speech “in which she insinuated the election of President Trump will lead to fascism in America.”
“Judge Howell’s speech is plainly inappropriate, consisting of partisan statements, election interference, and improper extrajudicial statements while criminal cases are pending,” the New York Republican claimed in the letter, which was first reported by NBC News.
The complaint, filed on Friday, revolves around remarks that Howell delivered while accepting an award at the Women’s White Collar Defense Association gala in November. According to Politico, Howell talked about the “big lies” that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection and warned that “we are having a very surprising and downright troubling moment in this country when the very importance of facts is dismissed, or ignored.”
Howell did not name Trump in her speech, but Stefanik nonetheless accused the judge of displaying a clear anti-Trump bias and asked the D.C. Circuit’s judicial council to “investigate Judge Howell’s partisan speech.”
“Judge Howell promoted the Democrat political campaign theme that the re-election of Donald Trump equates to America choosing authoritarianism,” she wrote in her letter.
Stefanik, whose loyalty to Trump helped propel her to leadership roles in the GOP — and whose name has been floated as a potential 2024 running mate — is no stranger to targeting judges and other officials whom she accuses of being prejudiced against the former president. In November, she filed a complaint about Judge Arthur Engoron with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, accusing him of displaying “partisan bias” against the former president in his civil fraud case — a narrative Trump and his defense team have also repeatedly pushed.
Howell, however, is not directly overseeing any of the ongoing criminal and civil cases against Trump. As chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., Howell supervised grand juries in the Robert Mueller probe and the indictment of Trump in the special counsel’s Jan. 6 case. (Judge James Boasberg took over as chief judge in March 2023.)
Howell has overseen a number of Jan. 6 rioters’ cases as well. She most recently presided over Rudy Giuliani’s civil defamation trial, in which Trump’s former lawyer was ordered to pay more than $148 million in damages for defaming two Georgia election workers.
Clarissa-Jan Lim
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for MSNBC Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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