The Department of Justice filed a voting-rights lawsuit. A federal judge got assigned to it. Someone looked up the judge's schedule and found a campaign fundraiser for the Fulton County District Attorney who prosecuted the former president after the 2020 election. The judge, to his credit, agreed that this looked like something, and stepped aside. So the DOJ's case about electoral impartiality is now beginning with a recusal proceeding about judicial impartiality in a matter originating from a prosecution whose impartiality was itself the subject of considerable dispute. We're three layers deep and the case hasn't started yet. At this rate, the merits will be argued sometime around the second Tuesday of never.
Now, a recusal is ordinarily a straightforward thing. A judge who has a personal connection to a party announces it and exits, the machinery continues, everyone moves along. What makes this particular recusal sing — and I mean that as a connoisseur of institutional self-contradiction — is the subject matter. The federal government brought this lawsuit because it believes the electoral process was administered unfairly. The judge assigned to evaluate that claim had attended a rally for a person who is herself the subject of an ongoing federal investigation touching on exactly those events. He didn't rule on anything. He simply attended. But in a case about whether proximity to a political position corrupts a legal proceeding, the judge's proximity to a political position was enough to corrupt his presence in the legal proceeding. The premise ate itself before the first brief was filed.
The administration wanted a trial. It got a demonstration. The demonstration being: yes, participation in political events by officers of the court does raise legitimate questions about the appearance of impartiality. Which is, word for word, a reasonable basis for the DOJ's underlying case. Which means the recusal motion is, in a narrow procedural sense, the DOJ winning an argument it filed in the wrong courtroom. I'd call that a partial victory, but given the subject, “partial” is probably the wrong word entirely.
The new judge will presumably have no connection to anyone. Or if they do, we'll find out in the next installment. The docket is infinite. The irony has already clocked out.