GOP Rep. Stefanik Files Complaint Against Judge in Trump, Jan. 6 Cases

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., has officially filed a complaint against U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who has overseen Jan. 6 cases and supervised special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of former President Donald Trump, for what Stefanik called “highly inappropriate political speech” Howell delivered in November.

Stefanik, an ally of the former president, has requested D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan conduct an ethics investigation of Howell, which was first reported by NBC News.

The complaint comes after a speech Howell gave at the annual gala of the Women’s White Collar Defense Association, where she accepted an award and blamed the storming of the Capitol in 2021 on "big lies."

“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,” Howell said during her acceptance speech.

Stefanik is arguing that Howell's remarks were "hardly apolitical" and that they were "plainly inappropriate, consisting of partisan statements, election interference, and improper extrajudicial statements while criminal cases are pending," according to NBC News.

"I filed a judicial misconduct complaint against Judge Howell, because election interference by judges destroys public confidence in the federal judiciary, tears apart the fabric of our Republic, and is illegal. It must end now,” the congresswoman told NBC News in a statement.

In her complaint, Stefanik also reportedly suggest that Howell's speech promotes a theme from the Democratic Party that the reelection of Trump equates to "authoritarianism," although Trump or any Republicans were not mentioned by name in Howell's speech.

Stefanik has also filed ethics complaints against Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over Trump's $250 million civil fraud case, accusing Engoron of "clear judicial bias."

Howell is an appointee of former President Barack Obama who previously oversaw the federal court in Washington, D.C., where Trump will faces charges of attempting to subvert the 2020 election.