A good government watchdog has filed a judicial complaint against an Obama-appointed judge for her instrumental role in the Biden administration’s anti-Trump lawfare, The Federalist has learned.
Submitted on Monday to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA), the complaint obtained by The Federalist “addresses probable judicial misconduct” by D.C. Senior District Judge Beryl Howell. The filing specifically highlights “recent reports that [Howell] consulted with members of the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) in strategizing on how to prosecute President Trump and other members of his administration, specifically the Arctic Frost investigation and prosecutions.”
As The Federalist previously reported, Arctic Frost ultimately became Special Counsel Jack Smith’s elector lawfare against Trump.
The complaint cites revelations disclosed in documents recently unearthed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and other GOP senators. Those files appear to show Howell’s involvement in Smith and his team’s invasive efforts to acquire the phone records of Republican members of Congress and Trump-aligned figures like now-FBI Director Kash Patel.
Among the records released by Grassley and Co. were a series of January 2023 “AG Briefing” materials, which seemingly indicated plans by Smith’s team to brief Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland on their investigation. Included in these materials was a scheduled meeting with Howell.
While some of the information is redacted, the records show that the Arctic Frost investigators planned to brief the Obama appointee on the inquiry’s “pace over the last month.” More notably, however, the materials from Smith’s team indicated that Howell “liked our approach of pursuing the executive privilege litigation in an omnibus fashion,” which effectively means “the consolidation of various motions into a single filing rather than handling each separately,” as Hans Mahncke summarized in these pages.
“Even if we assume for argument’s sake that the communications were technically permissible under grand jury administration rules, the language attributed to Howell, saying she ‘liked’ and ‘loved’ the DOJ’s approach, reveals a deeper problem,” Mahncke wrote. “Judicial impartiality does not mean having no opinions, but these opinions must be formed through the proper adversarial process. Expressing personal enthusiasm for one party’s litigation strategy is not neutral.”
The briefing materials also forecasted a scheduled meeting with D.C. District Judge James Boasberg on March 18, 2023 — the day after the anti-Trump Boasberg took over as chief judge from Howell.
CASA’s complaint additionally cited records released by Grassley and Senate Republicans showing Howell’s involvement in greenlighting the Arctic Frost team’s bid to examine GOP Rep. Scott Perry’s phone data. The Pennsylvania congressman had his device seized by the FBI in summer 2022 as part of the overreaching lawfare.
As described by Smith’s team in their “AG Briefing” materials, “Chief Judge Howell issued a favorable opinion granting us access to all but a small set of documents that Perry tried to withhold as privileged under the Speech of Debate Clause.” The Obama appointee ultimately denied a motion to stay pending appeal, and as noted by CASA, would go on “to sign nondisclosure orders, preventing Perry from becoming aware of his privacy and constitutionally protected information being violated during the investigation.”
[READ: New Document Shows Chief Judge Howell Privately Endorsed Jack Smith’s Get-Trump Lawfare]
In its complaint, CASA lists numerous judicial ethics canons it contends Howell “likely violated” during her interactions with Smith’s team. The good government group noted that while “the facts strongly suggest” as much, “an investigation should be promptly opened to confirm.”
“The notes from these meetings show members of the DOJ discussed strategy with the judges on how to best prosecute President Trump and his allies, and how to obtain phone records and communications from sitting members of Congress,” CASA Director James Fitzpatrick said in a statement to The Federalist. “The American people deserve an immediate investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding these meetings and if found to have violated judicial canons, Howell should be disciplined to the fullest extent possible.”
CASA demanded that Howell be “disciplined” by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals “if found to have violated any of the above Canons.”
CASA_2026 Howell Judicial Complaint by The Federalist
