Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Trump’s DOJ moves to disqualify federal judge, notes oversight in Jan. 6 investigation, (Mar 24, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The motion also cites a speech in which the judge mentioned a path leading to “authoritarianism,” which DOJ contends was “an apparent reference to” Trump.

On Friday, in a lawsuit brought by Perkins Coie after Trump targeted the law firm as part of an executive order—which suspended security clearances held by the firm’s staff and took aim at the firm’s business partners—the U.S. Department of Justice moved for the disqualification of the federal district judge in the case, who previously ruled on March 12, 2025, to temporarily restrain the administration from implementing or enforcing parts of that order.

In DOJ’s motion to disqualify Judge Beryl Howell, which in its eight pages veers heavily into events predating this litigation, the federal agency, for example, argues that the judge has shown animus by “enabling” the “weaponized lawfare” of prosecutor Jack Smith, a former DOJ employee and Special Counsel who investigated Trump’s alleged incitement of the January 6, 2021, insurrection. At that time, Judge Howell was the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The motion also brings up the Durham special counsel investigation.

It also cites the judge’s comments at a hearing on the “meritless motion” for a TRO and claims that “reasonable observers may well view this Court as insufficiently impartial to adjudicate the meritless challenges to” the president’s actions. The comments, according to the motion, included “gratuitous and biased references” regarding the Mueller investigation.

“Authoritarianism” reference points to Trump. The motion spills some ink, as well, on statements made by the judge in a speech at a Women’s White Collar Defense Association event regarding the country being at a “crossroads.” According to the motion, she made an “apparent reference to President Trump,” when indicating “that one path would lead to authoritarianism.”

And it accuses the judge of engaging in “wholly inappropriate name-calling,” with regard to statements made regarding Proclamation 10887, which granted pardons and commutation of sentences to Jan. 6 rioters, and “repeatedly calling President Trump’s supporters ‘sore losers’ and stating that the President’s pronouncement relayed a ‘revisionist myth.’”

Musk wants to “cozy up” to Trump. Moreover, the motion cites the judge’s determination that there was reason to believe the former President would “flee from prosecution” during Jack Smith’s investigation, as well as the determination that certain documents should be turned over to Smith and that Twitter could be held in contempt for failure to comply with a demand for Trump’s direct messages. “This Court could not resist from editorializing,” the motion complains, “asking whether Musk ‘wants to cozy up with the former president’ and whether Twitter’s efforts were ‘to make Donald Trump feel like he is a particularly welcomed new renewed user of Twitter.’”

“Condescending” comment about a “bee in his bonnet.” As for alleged misconduct in this specific case, it contends that a “number of exchanges took place between the court and defendants’ counsel regarding the activities of Perkins Coie attorneys and the 2016 election, “specifically their involvement in the procurement and distribution of the report by Fusion GPS.” It provides the following quote by the judge from the hearing held by the court on the TRO: “I know the President has just—you know, based on reading these papers, he was upset about that in 2016; he was so upset about this still he filed a lawsuit against Perkins Coie and others in the Southern District of Florida that was dismissed in rapid order. He keeps bringing it up. It’s like he doesn’t want any of us to forget Fusion GPS. He doesn’t want any of us to forget that—any of this. He really has a bee in his bonnet about it.” This reference to “a bee in his bonnet” was “condescending,” the motion contends.

The motion requests that the judge recuse herself.

Also sought reassignment of another D.D.C. judge. Earlier in the week, as reported by various news outlets, the Department of Justice also wrote a letter to the D.C. Circuit Court asking that court to “immediately reassign” another case, J.G.G. et al. v. Trump et al., Nos. 25-5067 and 25-5068, to a different judge. In that case, Judge James Boasberg had ruled against the Trump administration and required it to provide information related to removal flights that may have occurred in contradiction to the court’s orders.

The day after that letter, and responding to that Boasberg’s actions, President Trump posted:

“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President - He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

This, in turn, led U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare statement. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Notably, Judge Boasberg also was chief judge of the D.D.C. and also supervised Jack Smith’s January 6 investigation.

“Ploy to ‘play the ref’.” It is unclear how all of this squares with Trump’s prior statements regarding a different judge who was issuing rulings favorable to him a little less than a year ago: “They are calling her terrible names, wrongfully threatening her with Impeachment, and disrespecting her, all because they want her to act like the dishonest, politically biased, and conflicted Judges in New York, and not like the fair and impartial Judge that she is. These Persecutors are using Third World tactics in a corrupt ploy to ‘play the ref.’”

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