By Zach Schonfeld | Wednesday, June 3
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By Zach Schonfeld
Wednesday, June 3
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© AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
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Obama-era judge pressured by sex scandal
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Pressure is growing on a federal judge after an investigation discovered she lied about being in an extramarital affair with a high-ranking police officer and having sex within earshot of her clerks.
Lawyers are in uproar. A prominent ethics watchdog wants an impeachment inquiry. And the Trump administration hopes to kick her off a key lawsuit.
It’s quite the turn of events for U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, nominated to the federal bench in Atlanta by then-President Obama in 2013.
A 20-page investigative report, released by her fellow judges, indicates the affair went on for roughly two years. Clerks reported hearing kissing and moaning noises. Initially, the judge denied the claims before recanting her statement.
The report does not identify Ross by name, but it provides enough detail where commentators and reporters quickly matched it to Ross.
“The Subject Judge’s conduct regarding the relationship—particularly when it came to sexual activity in chambers—demonstrated a gross lack of judgment,” the report reads. “Regardless of whether the Subject Judge intended to do so, the judge created a chambers workplace that was extremely uncomfortable and troubling for clerks.”
The investigation culminated in a private reprimand and concessions that Ross will issue letters of apology to her former clerks. She’ll also forgo serving as her district’s chief judge or on a Judicial Conference committee in the future.
That was not enough for some.
Fix the Court Director Gabe Roth, a prominent judiciary ethics reform advocate, said he wants to see Congress “dig deeper” and consider impeachment.
“After an underwhelming result to this point, which looks more like judges protecting their own than serious remediation or punishment, Congress must step in and on a bipartisan basis determine if Judge Ross recanting her false statements is enough to shield her from harsher penalties,” Roth said in a statement.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has latched onto revelations that Ross attended Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ (D) victory party.
Ashleigh Merchant, a Georgia defense attorney who gained national attention for exposing Willis’ romance with a prosecutor she hired to prosecute Trump, found the photo evidence. In the above photo, she points out that's Ross in the blue dress.
The administration wants the judge thrown off a lawsuit it filed that seeks to force Georgia to turn over voter data to the federal government.
“A judge who attended a party celebrating the election of a Democrat best known for prosecuting a Republican President for alleged election interference cannot then preside over a case concerning that President’s efforts to ensure election integrity,” the Justice Department wrote in its Friday motion.
Impeaching a federal judge is rare.
The Senate hasn’t removed a federal judge from office since 2010, when lawmakers rallied to rebuke U.S. District Judge Thomas Porteous after evidence came to light that he accepted cash from lawyers.
Other efforts have stalled.
The House has yet to vote on a referral to impeach U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred, who resigned from his post in Alaska after facing misconduct accusations.
But unlike Kindred, who left the bench without Congress forcing him, Ross is still serving.
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Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill’s weekly newsletter unpacking the intersection of courts and politics from Zach Schonfeld. Email me tips, or reach out on X () or Signal ().
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Coveted LGA slots up for auction as Spirit Airlines folds
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Spirit Airlines' last sale
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Spirit Airlines has one more group of passengers: Its creditors.
One month after the beleaguered budget airline announced it is winding down operations, it is, at the same time, gearing up to auction off its remaining valuable assets in bankruptcy.
“This is a difficult task of uncertain duration,” Spirit’s lawyers wrote in court filings last week.
Spirit Airlines announced on May 2 it was permanently shutting down operations after failing to reach a deal for government bailout. The budget airline had been in bankruptcy for months, but rising jet fuel costs brought its financial troubles to an insurmountable level.
So, what does Spirit have that’s worth selling?
Bankruptcy proceedings are a gem for reporters, as they force companies to disclose painstaking details about their finances. I’ve dug through the docket, and here’s the list of assets that Spirit plans on selling:
• LGA Slots
• Plane hangars
• Corporate headquarters
• Training center
• Spare engines
• Flight simulators
• Ground equipment
• Loyalty program assets
Spirit’s former competitors are already taking note.
“We know that there’s a significant amount of opportunities that are coming around assets that are within Spirit,” Frontier Airlines CEO Jimmy Dempsey told investors on an earnings call last month.
Front and center in the upcoming bankruptcy auction will be what airline takes over Spirit’s coveted slots at LaGuardia Airport, located within the busy New York City air corridor. The airline estimated in an April filing they’re worth $86.7 million.
Spirit has suggested a special schedule for auctioning off the LGA slots, proposing it take place on July 9. Other auctions would also take place in July.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane will consider the auction proposal at a hearing next Wednesday.
To ensure steady leadership, Spirit and some of its creditors have proposed an incentive package to encourage three executives to stay on through the wind-down: CEO Dave Davis, General Counsel Thomas Canfield and Vice President of Special Projects Pedro Motta.
They could be on the cusp of major payouts. They’d receive a cut of the assets auctioned off, including 3.5 percent of the recoveries from the LGA slots.
The bankruptcy filings have also given a clearer picture for how the rising jet fuel costs, spurred by the war in Iran, brought Spirit past the point of no return this spring.
Before the war, Spirit reported spending $59.1 million on jet fuel in January.
By April, its final full month of operations, Spirit spent $111.8 million on fuel, bankruptcy filings show. That amounted to nearly half of the airline’s operating revenue, and it far surpassed Spirit’s spending on employee wages.
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- DOJ backs away from ‘anti-weaponization’ fund: The Justice Department is seemingly walking away from its $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified to Congress on Tuesday that "we’re not moving forward with the fund. Period." A judge had temporarily halted payouts in response to a lawsuit brought by Democracy Forward on behalf of various plaintiffs. Another judge, meanwhile, agreed to look into Trump’s settlement with the IRS that spurred the fund’s creation.
- Kennedy Center renaming, closure halted: A federal judge ordered workers to take Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center’s signage within two weeks and ruled that the institution’s planned closure was improperly approved. The Kennedy Center has vowed to appeal, though Trump has said he will transfer control of the performing arts institution back to Congress.
- SCOTUS unblocks Alabama map: The Supreme Court on Alabama's congressional map in an apparent 6-3 vote, ruling that Republicans can use a design that removes the state's second majority-Black congressional district following the court's recent Voting Rights Act decision.
- Tina Peters freed: Tina Peters, a former Colorado elections clerk who became the first local official convicted over efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election, left prison on Monday after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) commuted her sentence.
- Appeals court rules on transgender troops: A divided appeals court panel ruled that the military cannot discharge currently serving troops because they are transgender, but Trump can ban new recruits. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
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- Sotomayor reports for jury duty: Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor reported for jury duty last week at D.C. Superior Court, court spokesperson Doug Buchanan confirmed to The Gavel. The news was first reported by The New York Times. The justice was not selected for any jury and was not questioned in the jury box.
- Jackson attends Harvard commencement: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson attended Harvard’s commencement ceremony as well as the school’s Black Graduation Ceremony, social media posts show. Jackson previously served on the Harvard Board of Overseers.
- Patagonia v. Pattie Gonia: Outdoor apparel brand Patagonia’s trademark lawsuit against drag queen and environmental activist Pattie Gonia is heating up. It was filed back in January, but the drag queen is now speaking out and demanding the company drop its case. Patagonia pushed back in a Monday Instagram post, apologizing to LGBTQ+ customers they have hurt while insisting the suit is necessary to protect the brand’s trademarks.
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Cases the Supreme Court is taking up — or passing on — this term.
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In: First Step Act credits
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The Supreme Court took up one new case at its weekly conference. We previewed it, Maxwell v. Thomas, in the last edition.
Texas man William Maxwell is serving a two-decade prison sentence for his role in a racketeering conspiracy that also involved a member of the Lucchese organized crime family.
Maxwell says he’s entitled to be transferred to a halfway house or home confinement under the First Step Act, the major criminal justice reform bill passed during Trump’s first term. Lower courts disagreed.
His appeal will be heard during the Supreme Court’s next term, which begins in October.
At issue is whether Maxwell can raise his request via what is called a habeas petition, or whether he’s been using the wrong legal mechanism.
Notably, Maxwell initially represented himself when appealing to the justices. His petition got the attention of Masha Hansford, a key player in Davis Polk’s new Supreme Court practice. Hansford now represents him.
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Technically, the Supreme Court granted this case, too. But for different reasons.
In Whitton v. Dixon, the justices wiped the death sentence of Gary Whitton, who was found guilty of fatally stabbing his friend in 1990.
Whitton raises issue with a jailhouse informant who told jurors that Whitton confessed. The informant testified he had no criminal history other than being arrested during a spring break trip, but that was false. Whitton says it could’ve impeached the informant’s credibility.
An appeals court rejected Whitton’s bid for a new trial by pointing to other “overwhelming” evidence of his guilt. It latched onto DNA test conducted on Whitton’s boots years after his trial, which matched the victim.
But the jury never saw that evidence.
So, the Supreme Court ruled that was improper. It instructed the lower court to take another look and only consider the evidence the jury saw.
As the majority made clear Whitton still could ultimately lose, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said their colleagues shouldn’t have gotten involved at all.
“It is unfortunate that the Court chose to intervene at the request of a convicted murderer to correct the Eleventh Circuit’s inconsequential foot fault,” Thomas wrote. “What makes it even worse is that the Court does so even while it refuses to correct far more consequential errors for law-abiding citizens.”
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The justices asked the Trump administration to weigh in on whether they should take up a securities lawsuit against Robinhood over its initial public offering (IPO).
In Robinhood Markets v. Sodha, the trading platform hopes to dismiss a lawsuit from a group of investors who say it failed to make required disclosures as it went public.
Robinhood’s July 2021 IPO came as retail investors flocked to the platform, often to trade on so-called meme stocks.
But the stock price soon took a dive after the company reported its quarterly results in August, which revealed the company’s financial picture was no longer so rosy. The plaintiffs say Robinhood was obligated to report some of that interim financial data in the IPO.
The Supreme Court often goes with the government’s recommendation, so I’ll be on the lookout for it. It typically takes a few months for it to land.
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Petitions for the Supreme Court to take up cases I'm keeping an eye on.
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- Due process violation: Texas man Michael Newberry is trying to wipe his capital murder conviction. Texas and Newberry agree there was a due process violation, because prosecutors did not disclose the grand jury testimony of one of his co-defendants. But the state’s top criminal court denied relief, saying Newberry failed to meet his burden. Both sides want the justices to reverse that ruling. The case is Newberry v. Texas.
- 12-person juries: Hamed Kian, who was convicted of practicing chiropractic medicine with a suspended license by a six-person jury, argues the Constitution mandated a 12-person jury. The case is Kian v. Florida.
- Intellectually disabled death row inmates: Death-row inmate VÃctor Saldaño says he’s intellectually disabled and can’t constitutionally be executed. Texas courts have denied his claims, but he says they have created an improper procedural bar. The case is Saldaño v. Texas.
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Don’t be surprised if additional hearings are scheduled throughout the week. But here’s what I’m watching for now.
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- A federal judge in Milwaukee will hear oral arguments on state judge Hannah Dugan’s acquittal bid. Dugan, who was found guilty on obstruction charges for helping a migrant evade federal authorities, says her conviction relied on a precedent recently overturned by an appeals court.
- Luigi Mangione, suspected of fatally shooting United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, is scheduled to make his next court appearance in New York state court.
- A state judge in Vista, Calif., will hold a readiness hearing for Thomas Butler. He’s charged in connection with the killing of Kerry Sheron, a man known for his pro-Trump displays at his home.
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- The Supreme Court is expected to release at least one opinion among its remaining argued cases.
- Lawyers for New York City’s school system will make their case before a federal judge in Manhattan that the Trump administration is not complying with the judge’s previous order to restore grant funding to magnet schools in the city. The administration cut off funding over the schools’ transgender policies.
- A federal judge in New York will hear arguments that Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission isn’t complying with legal requirements. A coalition of progressive religious groups want to change the commission’s makeup to include more minority religions and force transparency.
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- A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments on whether Trump needs congressional authorization for his White House ballroom project.
- David Rush, the former CIA officer charged after officers searched his home and allegedly seized 303 gold bars worth a combined $40 million, will appear before a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., for his detention hearing.
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- The Supreme Court will release an order list.
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett is set to deliver a lecture at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual meeting.
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- The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is scheduled to testify before the federal judge overseeing refunds of Trump’s tariffs that were invalidated by the Supreme Court.
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I'll be back next Wednesday with additional reporting and insights. In the meantime, keep up with my coverage here.
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