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A senior court official has dismissed a Justice Department complaint accusing a federal judge of “hostile and serious” misconduct during his hearing of a case challenging Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military personnel.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, based in Washington, D.C., was accused of inappropriately questioning a government lawyer on his religious beliefs during a February hearing and attempting to rhetorically embarrass him.
Mr. Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, dismissed the complaint in a Sept. 29 order, which was made public on Monday. He said the Justice Department should have moved a motion to challenge Judge Reyes’ impartiality and remove him from the case.
The department did not explicitly ask to remove Reyes from prosecuting transgender soldiers. And it did not file any petition for review of the Chief Justice’s order, which reached no conclusion about the merits of the allegations in the complaint.
Srinivasan wrote, “If a party believes that a judge’s conduct in a case raises serious questions about his or her impartiality, it must press its concerns in the usual way—by seeking to recuse itself from the case—as the standards for resolving the case are well established.”
The Justice Department had no immediate comment Tuesday. Reyes declined to comment on the chief justice’s order or the department’s complaint.
The complaint was filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s then-chief of staff, Chad Mizell, who has since left the department. Mizell claimed that Reyes’ behavior “compromised the dignity of the proceedings and demonstrated potential bias.”
“When judges display obvious bias or treat attorneys disrespectfully, the public’s confidence in the judicial system is diminished,” he wrote.
Mizell’s complaint cites an exchange in which Reyes asked a government attorney: “What do you think Jesus would say to a group of people telling them they are so worthless, so worthless that we will not allow them in homeless shelters? Do you think Jesus would say, ‘I feel right’?” The lawyer responded, “The United States is not going to speculate about what Jesus would say about anything.”
The complaint also mentions rhetoric about discrimination. Reyes talked about changing the rules in his courtroom to prevent graduates of the University of Virginia Law School from appearing before him because they are all “liars and lack integrity.” He instructed the government lawyer, a graduate of the school, to sit before calling him back to the podium.
Reyes was nominated to the bench by the President Joe BidenA Democrat. Trump and Republican allies have stepped up a series of attacks against the federal judiciary since the beginning of his second term.
Trump’s January 27 executive order claims, without presenting evidence, that the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is detrimental to military readiness. This required the Secretary of Defense pete hegseth To issue a revised policy.
Six transgender people who were active-duty service members and two other plaintiffs who were seeking to join the military filed suit to challenge Trump’s order. Reyes blocked implementation of the order in March, ruling that it likely violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. A federal judge in Washington state also blocked implementation of the order.
Reyes agreed to suspend her order pending the government’s appeal, which has not yet been resolved. But the US Supreme Court has meanwhile allowed the Trump administration to ban transgender people in the military.