{"id":162330,"date":"2026-09-04T18:37:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/04\/chief-judge-pryor-tosses-judge-altman-terror-scarf-complaint-showing-off-bipartisan-leniency-toward-misconduct-claims\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T18:37:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:37:52","slug":"chief-judge-pryor-tosses-judge-altman-terror-scarf-complaint-showing-off-bipartisan-leniency-toward-misconduct-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/04\/chief-judge-pryor-tosses-judge-altman-terror-scarf-complaint-showing-off-bipartisan-leniency-toward-misconduct-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Chief Judge Pryor Tosses Judge Altman \u2018Terror Scarf\u2019 Complaint, Showing Off Bipartisan Leniency Toward Misconduct Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eleventh Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor seems like a good supervisor to have! Whether you\u2019re a Democratic-appointed judge using your chambers to have sex with a police official whose department routinely shows up in your courthouse<\/a> or a Republican-appointed judge using your chambers to video right-wing talk show appearances calling an Arab head covering a \u201cterror scarf,\u201d<\/a> Pryor appears willing to provide as soft of a landing as possible. <\/p>\n

Pryor himself had a busy Tuesday. That\u2019s the day that the conservative jurist received a letter from some House Judiciary Republicans demanding to know why a federal judge who had sex in her chambers, attended a partisan campaign party, and then lied about it to two chief judges walked away with a private reprimand. He also signed an order clearing a different federal judge of everything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the day that he dismissed<\/a> the recent complaint against Judge Roy Altman of the Southern District of Florida \u2014 which we covered here<\/a> \u2014 citing his repeated media hits filmed from his chambers where he trafficked in Islamophobic tropes including referring to the keffiyeh as a \u201cterror scarf.\u201d Pryor dismissed this complaint without appointing a special committee, finding the allegations \u201clack any factual foundation or are conclusively refuted by objective evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dismissal brings a real \u201cforest for the trees\u201d energy to the inquiry. He accepts Judge Altman\u2019s contention that he wasn\u2019t using his chambers for extrajudicial work \u201cto any substantial degree\u201d \u2014 the Canon 4G standard \u2014 because he only participated in thirteen days of interviews across five months and never strained the office internet. Fair enough, though the problem was never really the precise time clocked on right-wing talk shows, but the imprimatur of authority and resulting appearance of impartiality conveyed when a federal judge uses a public office space to make sweeping claims about Islam running a vast conspiracy to control the media.<\/p>\n

\n

But it\u2019s simply impossible, with my packed courtroom schedule, to drive thirty or forty minutes from my chambers to my house for a fifteen-, thirty-, or sixty-minute interview and then to drive thirty or forty minutes back to chambers \u2014 especially on days, like some of the ones Giannamore cites, in which I\u2019ve sat through multiple such interviews on the same day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sure, though there is the third<\/em> option of not doing the interviews at all. When the defense is that the book tour schedule was so demanding that he needed to use office time to avoid having to take even more time away, that\u2019s not as compelling as\u2026 well, as Pryor seems to think it is.<\/p>\n

Asked to defend the terror scarf line, Altman went for this:<\/p>\n

\n

To make the point by analogy, there\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with the swastika. It is, in fact, an ancient symbol of Indian origins, having nothing to do with Jews. But no person acting in good faith would accept the claim that, because other cultures have embraced the swastika for innocuous reasons, a person who sprays a swastika on a wall in America today should be absolved of the antisemitic connotations it now carries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Oh\u2026 no\u2026 maybe we don\u2019t want to \u201cwell, actually\u201d swastikas. The problem with this formulation is that Judge Altman also<\/em> explains that he has never suggested \u201can Arab or Muslim man is supporting terrorism merely because he wears a keffiyeh.\u201d The thing about the swastika comparison is that it only works because the symbol carries a single, settled modern meaning. If he\u2019s taking the position that this head covering\u2019s symbolic content is flexible by context, it undermines the idea that it\u2019s taken on a fixed new meaning. Nobody argues a swastika is fine when Germans wear it and not when a college student does. Altman needs the keffiyeh to be an ordinary garment when he\u2019s answering the bias charge, and a swastika when he\u2019s defending the soundbite. It just doesn\u2019t support both.<\/p>\n

The dismissal doesn\u2019t really tangle with these issues. Much like the private reprimand for Judge Ross \u2014 which tried to conceal her identity \u2014 and the subsequent shrug when she attempted to fulfill her already meager punishment with apology letters vague enough to be useless<\/a>, the Eleventh Circuit seems to be a delightfully permissive jurisdiction to serve as a judge.<\/p>\n

Jim Jordan, Darrell Issa, and Clay Fuller want Pryor to explain by September 15 how a private reprimand was supposed to restore public confidence in Judge Ross\u2019s case. It\u2019s a fair question that we asked in June, when the impeachment resolutions started landing<\/a>. Something tells me that those legislators aren\u2019t going to be as critical of this dismissal. <\/p>\n

But they should be because they\u2019re both bad. It\u2019s acceptable to take a stern stance against the appearance of impropriety whether it\u2019s a Democrat or Republican. Indeed, we used to do that as a country.<\/p>\n

Altman\u2019s response cites Above the Law<\/em> by name in its first footnote, ahead of Zeteo and Al Jazeera, as proof the complaint was \u201cleaked to the press in a transparent attempt to damage my reputation.\u201d The complaint included a litany of receipts since most of the complained of conduct occurred on still available web shows, so any damage was already publicly available. <\/p>\n

Though since Judge Pryor has, in fact, referred to me as \u201cone of the great journalists of our time<\/a>,\u201d he probably didn\u2019t bat an eye to see that footnote.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Federal Judge Calls Arab Head Covering A \u2018Terror Scarf\u2019 As Part Of Persistent Anti-Muslim Rhetoric<\/a>
Chief Judge Pryor Decides No Harm, No Foul Over Judge Ross\u2019s Flimsy Apologies<\/a>
You Will Not Believe The \u2018Apology\u2019 Letter Judge Eleanor Ross Wrote Her Clerks<\/a>
Judge Eleanor Ross Impeachment Arrives Right On Schedule, Managing To Yet Again Botch The Standard<\/a>
Judiciary Tried To Hide \u2018Sex In Chambers\u2019 Judge\u2019s Name. It Left A Roadmap To Identify Eleanor Ross Instead.<\/a>
Federal Judge Had Sex In Chambers Bringing New Meaning To Gavel Bang<\/a>
Federal Judge Weeps For Poor Defenseless Federalist Society, Ruthlessly Bullied By Legal Bloggers<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Chief Judge Pryor Tosses Judge Altman \u2018Terror Scarf\u2019 Complaint, Showing Off Bipartisan Leniency Toward Misconduct Claims<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Eleventh Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor seems like a good supervisor to have! Whether you\u2019re a Democratic-appointed judge using your chambers to have sex with a police official whose department routinely shows up in your courthouse<\/a> or a Republican-appointed judge using your chambers to video right-wing talk show appearances calling an Arab head covering a \u201cterror scarf,\u201d<\/a> Pryor appears willing to provide as soft of a landing as possible. <\/p>\n

Pryor himself had a busy Tuesday. That\u2019s the day that the conservative jurist received a letter from some House Judiciary Republicans demanding to know why a federal judge who had sex in her chambers, attended a partisan campaign party, and then lied about it to two chief judges walked away with a private reprimand. He also signed an order clearing a different federal judge of everything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the day that he dismissed<\/a> the recent complaint against Judge Roy Altman of the Southern District of Florida \u2014 which we covered here<\/a> \u2014 citing his repeated media hits filmed from his chambers where he trafficked in Islamophobic tropes including referring to the keffiyeh as a \u201cterror scarf.\u201d Pryor dismissed this complaint without appointing a special committee, finding the allegations \u201clack any factual foundation or are conclusively refuted by objective evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dismissal brings a real \u201cforest for the trees\u201d energy to the inquiry. He accepts Judge Altman\u2019s contention that he wasn\u2019t using his chambers for extrajudicial work \u201cto any substantial degree\u201d \u2014 the Canon 4G standard \u2014 because he only participated in thirteen days of interviews across five months and never strained the office internet. Fair enough, though the problem was never really the precise time clocked on right-wing talk shows, but the imprimatur of authority and resulting appearance of impartiality conveyed when a federal judge uses a public office space to make sweeping claims about Islam running a vast conspiracy to control the media.<\/p>\n

\n

But it\u2019s simply impossible, with my packed courtroom schedule, to drive thirty or forty minutes from my chambers to my house for a fifteen-, thirty-, or sixty-minute interview and then to drive thirty or forty minutes back to chambers \u2014 especially on days, like some of the ones Giannamore cites, in which I\u2019ve sat through multiple such interviews on the same day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sure, though there is the third<\/em> option of not doing the interviews at all. When the defense is that the book tour schedule was so demanding that he needed to use office time to avoid having to take even more time away, that\u2019s not as compelling as\u2026 well, as Pryor seems to think it is.<\/p>\n

Asked to defend the terror scarf line, Altman went for this:<\/p>\n

\n

To make the point by analogy, there\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with the swastika. It is, in fact, an ancient symbol of Indian origins, having nothing to do with Jews. But no person acting in good faith would accept the claim that, because other cultures have embraced the swastika for innocuous reasons, a person who sprays a swastika on a wall in America today should be absolved of the antisemitic connotations it now carries.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Oh\u2026 no\u2026 maybe we don\u2019t want to \u201cwell, actually\u201d swastikas. The problem with this formulation is that Judge Altman also<\/em> explains that he has never suggested \u201can Arab or Muslim man is supporting terrorism merely because he wears a keffiyeh.\u201d The thing about the swastika comparison is that it only works because the symbol carries a single, settled modern meaning. If he\u2019s taking the position that this head covering\u2019s symbolic content is flexible by context, it undermines the idea that it\u2019s taken on a fixed new meaning. Nobody argues a swastika is fine when Germans wear it and not when a college student does. Altman needs the keffiyeh to be an ordinary garment when he\u2019s answering the bias charge, and a swastika when he\u2019s defending the soundbite. It just doesn\u2019t support both.<\/p>\n

The dismissal doesn\u2019t really tangle with these issues. Much like the private reprimand for Judge Ross \u2014 which tried to conceal her identity \u2014 and the subsequent shrug when she attempted to fulfill her already meager punishment with apology letters vague enough to be useless<\/a>, the Eleventh Circuit seems to be a delightfully permissive jurisdiction to serve as a judge.<\/p>\n

Jim Jordan, Darrell Issa, and Clay Fuller want Pryor to explain by September 15 how a private reprimand was supposed to restore public confidence in Judge Ross\u2019s case. It\u2019s a fair question that we asked in June, when the impeachment resolutions started landing<\/a>. Something tells me that those legislators aren\u2019t going to be as critical of this dismissal. <\/p>\n

But they should be because they\u2019re both bad. It\u2019s acceptable to take a stern stance against the appearance of impropriety whether it\u2019s a Democrat or Republican. Indeed, we used to do that as a country.<\/p>\n

Altman\u2019s response cites Above the Law<\/em> by name in its first footnote, ahead of Zeteo and Al Jazeera, as proof the complaint was \u201cleaked to the press in a transparent attempt to damage my reputation.\u201d The complaint included a litany of receipts since most of the complained of conduct occurred on still available web shows, so any damage was already publicly available. <\/p>\n

Though since Judge Pryor has, in fact, referred to me as \u201cone of the great journalists of our time<\/a>,\u201d he probably didn\u2019t bat an eye to see that footnote.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Federal Judge Calls Arab Head Covering A \u2018Terror Scarf\u2019 As Part Of Persistent Anti-Muslim Rhetoric<\/a>
Chief Judge Pryor Decides No Harm, No Foul Over Judge Ross\u2019s Flimsy Apologies<\/a>
You Will Not Believe The \u2018Apology\u2019 Letter Judge Eleanor Ross Wrote Her Clerks<\/a>
Judge Eleanor Ross Impeachment Arrives Right On Schedule, Managing To Yet Again Botch The Standard<\/a>
Judiciary Tried To Hide \u2018Sex In Chambers\u2019 Judge\u2019s Name. It Left A Roadmap To Identify Eleanor Ross Instead.<\/a>
Federal Judge Had Sex In Chambers Bringing New Meaning To Gavel Bang<\/a>
Federal Judge Weeps For Poor Defenseless Federalist Society, Ruthlessly Bullied By Legal Bloggers<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleventh Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor seems like a good supervisor to have! Whether you\u2019re a Democratic-appointed judge using your chambers to have sex with a police official whose department routinely shows up in your courthouse or a Republican-appointed judge using your chambers to video right-wing talk show appearances calling an Arab head covering a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Headshot-300x200-MskDNA.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}