Not a ruling, but...
A federal judge appointed by former President
Ronald Reagan has resigned from his lifetime position on Friday, issuing a scathing public condemnation of Republican President
Donald Trump administration's approach to justice and the rule of law.
Judge Mark L. Wolf, who served on the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts since 1989, announced his departure in a Sunday op-ed published by
The Atlantic titled "Why I Am Resigning," stating he can no longer abide by judicial restrictions that prevent him from publicly addressing what he characterizes as the administration's systematic dismantling of the rule of law.
"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," Wolf writes.
On his commitment to protecting the rule of law after leaving the bench, Wolf wrote that he "resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy. I also intend to advocate for the
judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves."
Wolf's extensive career focused on fighting corruption and maintaining judicial impartiality. Beginning in 1974 during the Watergate crisis, he served as a special assistant to Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman. When President Gerald Ford appointed Edward Levi as attorney general in 1975 to restore confidence in the
Justice Department, Ford directed Levi to "protect the rights of American citizens, not the President who appointed him."
From 1981 to 1985, as deputy U.S. attorney and chief federal prosecutor for public corruption in Massachusetts, Wolf and his team secured over 40 consecutive corruption convictions, earning him the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award.
On prosecutorial standards, Wolf writes: "What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly"
He also highlighted the systematic dismantling of anti-corruption infrastructure, writing that Trump fired 18 inspectors general responsible for detecting fraud across federal agencies, eliminated the FBI's public-corruption squad, and reduced the Justice Department's public-integrity section from 30 lawyers to five.