A federal appeals court has assigned a Trump-appointed Ohio judge to oversee Senator Marsha Blackburn’s lawsuit against former special counsel Jack Smith after every active district judge in Middle Tennessee recused from the case. The reassignment puts an outside judge in charge of a politically charged constitutional challenge to investigative steps Smith took while examining efforts to overturn the 2020 election. District Judge Douglas R.
Cole will now preside over Blackburn’s claims that Smith unlawfully obtained her phone records and violated protections afforded to members of Congress. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was designated to preside after all four active district judges in the Middle District of Tennessee withdrew from the litigation, according to an order issued Wednesday. Bush appointed Kethledge to the appeals court.
"All District Judges of the Middle District of Tennessee have recused in this matter," the new order said. Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has designated United States District Judge Douglas R. Cole to preside over the case.
Accordingly, the case is hereby reassigned to Judge Cole." Cole’s assignment resolves an unusual procedural question that had hung over the lawsuit since October 5, when Chief U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. announced that the entire active district bench had stepped aside.
The court has not publicly explained the recusals. The Justice Department declined to comment on the reassignment, citing the pending litigation. Blackburn filed the lawsuit in the U.S.
District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on September 30. The first recusal came two days later, when U.S. Trauger entered an order withdrawing from the case and returning it to the clerk for reassignment.
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