Federal judge faces ethics complaint after criticizing Trump on CNN

An ethics complaint was filed Tuesday against a federal judge for making remarks on CNN about former President Donald Trump’s conduct at his trial in New York.

Mike Davis, president of the conservative Article III Project, filed a 13-page complaint against Judge Reggie Walton with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The complaint cited a canon in the Code of Conduct for United States Judges: “A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.”

“Senior D.C. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton clearly violated this Canon,” the filing said.

Judge Walton, a Bush appointee who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, joined CNN on Thursday to say Mr. Trump’s criticism of judges and prosecutors is undermining the justice system.

He went public with his opinions after Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s hush money case in New York, issued a gag order on Mr. Trump.

The gag order noted that the former president has a history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” comments.

According to the ethics complaint: “Judge Walton’s clear violation is highly prejudicial to President Trump, as it taints four different jury pools. Judge Walton’s highly inappropriate, pre-planned, highly prejudicial, political CNN interview will cause the federal judiciary to lose its legitimacy with a broad swath of the American people. DC federal judges must get their house in order and take immediate corrective action against Judge Walton.”

The complaint is now in the hands of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee. Judge Srinivasan’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Judge Walton said he joined CNN to speak out against threats against judges, which he said in his experience has risen since the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“It is very troubling because I think it is an attack on the rule of law when judges are threatened and particularly when their family is threatened, and it’s something that’s wrong and should not happen,” said Judge Walton.

Mr. Trump is facing several pending prosecutions and has often taken to social media to criticize the judges and prosecutors lobbing criminal charges at him during the 2024 campaign.

He is set to go to trial next month in New York over hush-money payments allegedly made during his 2016 campaign to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Mr. Trump in the past. He has denied the affair.

The former president is also facing federal prosecution in Washington over his challenge to the 2020 election results. That case is not pending before Judge Walton, but it is pending before another judge in the same court.