Who is Judge Beryl Howell? All about the judge accused of judicial misconduct over January 6 remarks

Rep. Elise Stefanik filed a complaint alleging judicial misconduct on Friday against Judge Beryl Howell. This came after what Stefanik referred to as a "highly inappropriate political speech," which the judge gave on November 27, at the Women’s White Collar Defense Association gala, as per NBC News.

Howell spoke about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in her speech and also reportedly ruled in cases related to the same. She highlighted the impact of "big lies" related to the attack in 2021 and referenced Heather Cox Richardson's Democracy Awakening as she said, "Big lies are springboards for authoritarians," as per The Hill.

Stefanik stated that these remarks were "hardly apolitical" and "plainly inappropriate."

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Beryl Howell was appointed to the District Court in 2010

A complaint was filed against federal judge Beryl Howell, on Friday, December 15, in connection to a speech she gave last month while receiving an award.

In 1978, Howell graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a BA honors degree in philosophy. In 1983, the judge received her JD degree from Columbia University School of Law. After attending law school, she began working as a law clerk to Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise. Simultaneously, she also worked as a litigation associate at the law firm of Schulte, Roth & Zabel.

Judge Beryl Howell further served as the general counsel of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1993 till 2003. She was appointed to the District Court in 2010.

From March 2016 to March 2023, Howell was the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She also worked as an adjunct professor of Legal Ethics at American University's Washington College of Law.

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Rep. Stefanik reportedly called the federal judge's speech "highly inappropriate election interference"

Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has also been an ally of Trump, requested an ethics investigation into the judge. According to her, Howell's remarks during the speech were "plainly inappropriate, consisting of partisan statements, election interference, and improper extrajudicial statements while criminal cases are pending," as per The Hill.

According to NBC News, Judge Beryl Howell said in her speech:

"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 Jan. 6, 2021, when they disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol. As district court judges, we are all about the facts."

Bloomberg Law quoted Stefanik's statement, in which she mentioned:

"Judge Howell’s partisan speech is obviously highly inappropriate election interference by a federal judge that undermines the public’s trust in our courts."

Representatives of the judge are yet to comment on the allegations.