The Department of Justice has filed a complaint against U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, accusing her of bias and misconduct in hearing a case against the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people.
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Reyes, a lesbian and an immigrant from Uruguay, is hearing a case known as Talbott v. Trump,filed by six active-duty trans service members and two people who want to enlist. They are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD Law) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The suit was filed January 28 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, now being implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A second lawsuit has been filed against the military policy as well.
The complaint, from Chad Mizelle, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, claims Reyes asked inappropriate questions about DOJ lawyer Jason Lynch’s religious beliefs and sought to embarrass him during a hearing on Talbott v. Trump last week.
“The transcript reveals multiple instances where Judge Reyes’ misconduct compromised the dignity of the proceedings and demonstrated potential bias, raising serious concerns about her ability to preside impartially in this matter,” the complaint states, according to Chris Geidner at Law Dork. It was filed Friday with Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge on the D.C. Circuit, as the law requires. Srinivasan was appointed by President Barack Obama, Reyes by President Joe Biden.
“Mizelle was not even apparently at the hearing, as he only discusses the allegations through reference to the transcript,” Geidner reports. “It shows, because Mizelle both cherry picks quotes from the two-day hearing to make his allegations and is either unaware of or intentionally ignoring the legal issues before the court.”
Mizelle particularly objects to Reyes’s reference to an email she received, telling her to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ, leading her to ask Lynch, “What do you think Jesus would say to telling a group of people that they are so worthless, so worthless that we’re not going to allow them into homeless shelters? Do you think Jesus would be, ‘Sounds right to me’? Or do you think Jesus would say, ‘WTF? Of course, let them in’?”
Lynch replied, “The United States is not going to speculate about what Jesus would have to say about anything.”
“While Mizelle attempted to turn it into some sort of attack on Lynch’s faith, it was clear that Reyes was using the email in an admittedly ham-handed attempt to generalize the courtroom discussion about the motivations behind Trump’s policies,” Geidner writes. “When he didn’t bite, she moved on.”
Reyes also offered a hypothetical situation in which she would bar all graduates of the University of Virginia Law School from appearing before her because “they’re all liars and lack integrity,” which is what the military policy essentially says about trans people. Lynch is a graduate of the school, and she told him to sit down. “Only after Judge Reyes used counsel as a physical prop did she instruct him to come back up to continue the proceedings,” the complaint states.
“Reyes’s desire to get answers when none were forthcoming pretty transparently led her to seek answers through analogies and examples,” Geidner writes. “That was all that this was.” He adds, “It’s very disturbing to see these brief moments — both of which were attempts to get answers from a largely non-responsive government lawyer defending a policy being challenged as being unconstitutionally discriminatory — form the basis of a judicial complaint.”
“Reyes is known for her stern rebukes of lawyers on both sides,” the Associated Press reports. The AP further notes that the complaint “marks an escalation of the Republican administration’s criticism of the judiciary, which has been weighing a slew of legal challenges to the Republican president’s actions.”
In hearing Talbott v. Trump, Reyes “signaled deep skepticism” about the administration’s argument that the presence of trans members harms military readiness, ABC News notes.
“You and I both agree that the greatest fighting force that world history has ever seen is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1 percent of the soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them. Would you agree with that?” Reyes asked Lynch, who responded, “No, Your Honor, I’m not. I can’t agree with that.” She also challenged GLAD Law attorney Jennifer Levi about whether discharging this small number of troops would harm readiness.
She went on to ask Lynch, “If you were in a foxhole, you wouldn’t care about these individuals’ gender ideology, right? You would just be happy that someone with that experience and that bravery and that honorable service to the country was sitting right next to you. Right?”
Lynch allowed, “If I were in a foxhole, I doubt that the gender identity would be a primary concern.”
Reyes further asked Lynch if trans service members are “honorable, truthful, and disciplined” and if he “would agree that together, the plaintiffs have made America safer.” “I would agree, yes,” Lynch said.
She said of Trump’s “two genders” executive order, the basis for his other anti-trans actions, “There are people who are neither male nor female, and so the premise of the executive order is just incorrect.” These actions are motivated by “unadulterated animus,” she said.
Reyes plans to hold another hearing March 3. The plaintiffs want a preliminary injunction blocking the trans ban while the case proceeds.
