Yesterday, Judge Mark L. Wolf penned an open letter in the pages of The Atlantic announcing his retirement. The Reagan appointee has been on the bench for 40 years, 28 of which were as an active status judge — in 2013, he took senior status — and before that, he worked at the Department of Justice. But Judge Wolf is unable to continue his life of service for one basic reason: Donald Trump.
My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.
Judge Wolf continues, noting Trump is an “existential threat to democracy and the rule of law,” and “what Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly.”
First Draft To Final: How To Use AI To Accelerate Legal Drafting Workflows
Discover how LexisNexis Protégé™ transforms legal drafting into a strategic collaboration between lawyers and AI—enhancing quality, speed, and defensibility.
Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired, possibly unlawfully, 18 inspectors general who were responsible for detecting and deterring fraud and misconduct in major federal agencies. The FBI’s public-corruption squad has also been eliminated. The Department of Justice’s public-integrity section has been eviscerated, reduced from 30 lawyers to only five, and its authority to investigate election fraud has been revoked.
Plus there’s Trump’s about face on crypto — just in time for him to launch his own currency. And now that Trump’s hawking $TRUMP, whaddya know — Trump disbanded the DOJ’s cryptocurrency-enforcement unit. Talk about the “unlawful influence of money on official decisions.”
As Wolf notes, since he was already on senior status, replaced on the District of Massachusetts by Obama-appointee Indira Talwani, this doesn’t mean another vacancy for Trump to fill. Which seems like it’s news to at least one ASS Law professor.
3 Ways Lawyers Are Finding New Efficiencies With AI
Those who’ve adopted legal-specific systems are seeing big benefits.
Wolf told the New York Times he hopes to use his time away from the bench to continue to speak out against the Trump administration’s erosion of constitutional protections and “I hope to be a spokesperson for embattled judges who, consistent with the code of conduct, feel they cannot speak candidly to the American people.”
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].