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House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik has filed a misconduct complaint against a judge who has ruled in cases related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and former President Donald Trump.
Stefanik's complaint against D.C. District Judge Beryl Howell cites a speech she delivered in November after accepting an award from the Women's White Collar Defense Association.
While Howell did not name Trump during her speech, she lamented that people are dismissing facts and believing "big lies" related to the 2020 presidential election and the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
"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 January 6, 2021, when they disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol," Howell said in her speech.
"Big lies are springboards for authoritarians," Howell said, quoting Heather Cox Richardson's book Democracy Awakening.
"We are having a very surprising and downright troubling moment in this country when the very importance of facts is dismissed or ignored," Howell added.
Stefanik's complaint called Howell's speech "highly inappropriate" and said her comments were "unbecoming of a federal judge."
"Judge Howell's speech is plainly inappropriate, consisting of partisan statements, election interference, and improper extrajudicial statements while criminal cases are pending," Stefanik wrote.