Reagan-era judge quits to speak out on Trump: Silence is "intolerable"
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Mark Wolf, who retired Friday as a senior judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, in Washington, D.C., in 2023. Photo: Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Mark Wolf, who resigned Friday as a senior Reagan-appointed judge, accused President Trump of "using the law for partisan purposes" in a scathing op-ed that The Atlantic published Sunday.
The big picture: The Massachusetts federal judge, who served in the Department of Justice during the Ford administration, resigned on Friday — the same day that U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called on young lawyers to join the Trump administration's "war" against "rogue activist judges."
Driving the news: Wolf in the op-ed that's titled "Why I'm resigning" accused Trump of "targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment."
- This was "contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years" in the DOJ and on the bench, said Wolf, who was 38 when he was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in 1985.
- "What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly," said Wolf, who served in the DOJ in the years after the Watergate break-in.
- Wolf said "even a prosecution that ends in an acquittal can have devastating consequences for the defendant" and noted DOJ guidelines instruct prosecutors "not to seek an indictment unless they believe there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
- However, "Trump has utterly ignored this principle."
Context: While Wolf was appointed by Reagan, he took senior status in 2013, allowing then-President Obama to appoint his replacement.
- In one academic study, Wolf had some of the most liberal clerks of any district judge in the nation.
- Before his appointment to the bench, Wolf led the Justice Department's Public Corruption Unit in Boston, and he has served as the chair of Integrity Initiatives International, an international NGO focused on strengthening anti-corruption enforcement.
- In 2023, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on judicial ethics after investigative reports alleged Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose luxury travel and other gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow.
Zoom in: The "White House's assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out," Wolf wrote.
- "Silence, for me, is now intolerable."
- He said he can no longer "bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom."
- Wolf told the New York Times in a phone interview that he hopes to become "a spokesperson for embattled judges who, consistent with the code of conduct, feel they cannot speak candidly to the American people."
The other side: White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the NYT judges who looked to "inject their own personal agenda into the law have no place on the bench" and any other "radical judges that want to complain to the press should at least have the decency to resign before doing so."
- Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Go deeper: DOJ's No. 2 frames legal fight as "war" on judges, state bars
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional context.
