Dec. 15 (UPI) — Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., filed an ethics complaint Friday against a federal judge who oversaw multiple Jan. 6-related cases.
Stefanik formally requested an ethics investigation into U.S. District Court Judge Beryll Howell, accusing her of judicial misconduct in a “highly inappropriate speech” the judge gave last month after accepting an award at the Women’s White Collar Defense Association awards gala in Washington, D.C.
In her speech, Howell warned of the effect of “big lies” in regard to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“My D.C. judicial colleagues and I regularly see the impact of big lies at the sentencing of hundreds, hundreds of individuals who have been convicted for offense conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, when they disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol,” she said.
In her complaint to the Judicial Council of the D.C. Circuit, Stefanik accused Howell of suggesting that re-electing former President Donald Trump will lead to authoritarianism in America and that her speech “undermines public trust in judicial independence, in violation of Canon 2B.”
“Partisans cannot use our judicial system to exact political revenge against those with whom they disagree,” the complaint read. “The consequences for our legal system, Constitution, and country would be devastating.”
Howell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, has issued several decisions against Jan. 6 defendants and oversaw the grand jury that indicted Trump in his federal 2020 election subversion case.
Howell is not the only judge Stefanik has targeted with an ethics inquiry. A staunch Trump supporter and member of GOP leadership, Stefanik in November filed a complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron, who ruled Trump and the Trump Organization committed systematic business fraud for years.
