You Knew There Had To Be A Terrible Reason Why A Trump Judge Suddenly Resigned
Some pretty awful behavior from the now-former judge.
Judge Joshua M. Kindred was only a federal judge for the District of Alaska for four years — but man, did he jam pack it with misconduct!
Don’t believe me? Well, the Special Committee appointed by the Ninth Circuit to investigate the allegations against Kindred submitted a final report that weighed in at an impressive 1,144 pages. In fairness, a lot of that was exhibits (as documented by the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit’s Complaint of Misconduct, available in full below) — which isn’t actually any better.
The Committee’s investigation included a review of documents obtained from various witnesses and Judge Kindred, including text messages exchanged between Judge Kindred and his law clerks. These communications included more than 700 pages of text messages.
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And you thought your Hanging with Mahomey group text blew up during football season.
As you might imagine with so many documented communications — to say nothing of the oral conversations — the Judicial Council’s complaint is a veritable dread trove of what *not* to do in any professional environment. A sampling:
The Committee’s investigation revealed that Judge Kindred created a hostile chambers environment for his law clerks. Judge Kindred appeared to have no filter as to the topics he would discuss with the clerks. He discussed his past dating life, his romantic preferences, his sex life, the law clerks’ boyfriends and dating lives, his divorce, his interest in and communications with potential romantic or sexual partners, and his disparaging opinions of his colleagues. He also made disparaging comments about public and political figures. Some examples of these comments include: “I was a huge hit at dinner Partly due to how much shit I talked about Sarah palin”; “I told a republican [state] senator to eat a dick”; and “[a senator] is worried that I can kick [] his ass.”
He also had no hesitation in using language that was inappropriate in a professional setting, such as encouraging rating people based on “fuckability,” stating that he was not “hoe-ignorant,” or telling stories about “giving blow jobs in a hot tub.” In the few instances where clerks came to Judge Kindred to discuss his inappropriate behavior, they were belittled or ostracized, and, in one instance, a clerk left the clerkship.
And there’s more. So. Much. More.
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For instance, Judge Kindred made inappropriate and often vulgar comments to his law clerks such as “I’m just gonna pay for [a law clerk’s boyfriend’s] next ass tattoo”; “You’re going to the big leagues. You might be better in the butt leagues”; “I’ve never been invited to an orgy by a stranger before”; “I got asked out by a waitress which actually made me feel way less insecure about being single again, which was nice”; and “So it looks like I might need a judicial tinder profile.”
Without going through and pasting the entire complaint (though it is available in full at the end of this story), there are some high (low?) lights. Like the clerk that has coined the legal version of “Sir, this is an Arby’s.”
One clerk reported that Judge Kindred told her that an Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) had sent him nude photographs. She did not know what to do with that information. Judge Kindred was seeking advice from the clerk about what to do, and she told him “I am just a law clerk”; she reported being “devastated.” Judge Kindred’s texts with the clerk after this incident indicate that he may have felt insecure about sharing such information: “I don’t want you to think less of me”; “But you don’t think I suck? Do I give off a desperate for attention vibe?”
“I am just a law clerk” is now my go-to response to anything inane.
Also of note is the “unusually close” relationship between Kindred and one clerk in particular. For example, when she was out for a week due to a medical issue, he continued to text her — asking about her boyfriend, and writing “it feels like I haven’t seen you in months” and “[w]ork is so much better when you are here.” But throughout the course of her clerkship, the texts she received from Kindred were out of pocket. Like, “We are ride or die for life”; “you’re legitimately one of my best friends and favorite human beings in the world”; “I will forever be your biggest cheerleader. You’re a better lawyer than me, and I want you to just crush it. You’re sneaky one of my best friends”; and “Nothing is real until I talk to you about it. But why am I so needy? What’s wrong with me?”
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This behavior continued even after her clerkship ended and she became an Assistant United States Attorney (she did not appear before Judge Kindred while an AUSA, so at least that presents fewer issues). This culminated in some pretty disturbing incidents, including an evening where the judge kissed his former clerk. Kindred initially denied his former clerk’s version of events, but “these denials were belied by documentary evidence and, as revealed later during Judge Kindred’s testimony to the Judicial Council, by Judge Kindred’s own admissions.”
But the former clerk’s description of what happened a few days after the kissing is beyond the pale. She attended a pizza party for the judge, and she did not speak one-on-one to the judge. However, “Judge Kindred kept asking the law clerk to sit with him on the couch. She kept saying no but she thought, ‘Are you hitting on me openly in front of the clerks now?'” After the party Kindred invited her to an Airbnb apartment he was staying in.
The law clerk reported that, immediately after arriving at the apartment, Judge Kindred went to one of the bedrooms. Judge Kindred kept shouting to the clerk to “come to the bedroom, come to the bedroom” as he was lying on the bed and asked the clerk to lie down with him. Initially, she sat on the corner of the bed but at Judge Kindred’s insistence, she lay down. At this point, the law clerk explained that:
[H]e started putting his hands on me. And so I remember the first time he like grabbed my boob, and I like grabbed his like forearm, and I remember thinking like he felt really strong and I tried to like pull his arm off of me. . . . I just remember thinking like there’s nothing I can do about this, like this is about to happen. . . . I remember him saying something about like “Finally,” like – because I remember just feeling like, yeah, finally, like you win like the game. Like I always felt like this – like this thing that he couldn’t touch and finally he felt like he could touch. . . . He took my pants off. I’m pretty sure I was still wearing a shirt. . . . And then he performed oral sex on me.
Again, Kindred denied there was any sexual activity between him and the clerk. But then he was confronted by the Council with this text exchange.
Judge Kindred: You’ve been a whole ass adult
Emphasis on ass
. . .
Didn’t imagine your exit interview would involve that much oral
Law Clerk: *argument
Yes it was quite compelling
Judge Kindred: I hope so
Law Clerk: I feel like I was pretty up front about that
The neighbors know, anyhow
Judge Kindred: Well, I know I enjoyed it
Got to see you from a pretty amazing perspective
He did not have an explanation for these texts. The Council concluded his denial of these encounters were the “most egregious examples of Judge Kindred’s dishonesty.” And, “Judge Kindred’s conduct was not civil, dignified, or respectful — attributes that we expect from a federal judge — and his interactions with his law clerks were abusive, oppressive, and inappropriate.”
Facing impeachment for his behavior, last week Kindred abruptly resigned from the bench effective July 8. Now we know exactly why.
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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].
