The district court judge ended his 40-year appointment on the federal bench by publicly criticizing the Trump administration.
Federal Judge Mark Wolf publicly announced his retirement Sunday in an article in The Atlantic, saying he was unable to remain on the bench after 40 years because he wanted to speak out about concerns over what he called President Donald Trump’s “threat to democracy.”
In Wolf’s public resignation letter, the long-serving judge wrote that he “no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom.”
Wolf, 78, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The process of nominations includes presidents having an opportunity to consult with the state’s senators—who were Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry at the time—about the potential district court nominees, according to Congress.
His retirement was announced by the court Friday.
In his letter, Wolf alleged Trump was weaponizing the law.
“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,” Wolf wrote in the article. “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.”
A White House spokeswoman responded to the news on Wednesday.
“Judges that want to inject their own personal agenda into the law have no place on the bench,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Epoch Times in an email. “Here’s the reality: with over 20 Supreme Court victories, the Trump Administration’s policies have been consistently upheld by the Supreme Court as lawful despite an unprecedented number of legal challenges and unlawful lower court rulings.
“And any other radical judges that want to complain to the press should at least have the decency to resign before doing so,” she added.
Wolf presided over some of the state’s most well-known cases and was the first federal judge to approve a state-funded sex-change operation in 2012 for a transgender-identifying convicted murderer. The judge’s decision was initially upheld by a three-judge panel but later overturned after prison officials appealed the case before the full court in the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He also publicly testified in the U.S. Senate during an inquiry into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas regarding the ethics complaint process for justices in 2023.
News of the judge’s retirement declaration sparked some criticisms among Republicans.
Mike Davis, an attorney and former chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Wolf was not being honest with the public by claiming to be a conservative.
“Mark is deceiving everyone by pretending he’s a Reagan Republican,” Davis posted on X Sunday.
According to the court, Wolf graduated from Yale College and Harvard Law School. He taught courses on the role of judges in American democracy at Harvard, Boston College, New England, and the University of California–Irvine Law School. He also lectured on public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Massachusetts District Court Chief Judge Denise Casper said he had served with distinction.
“His steadfast commitment to the rule of law, determination in wrestling with novel issues of fact and law, and dedication to making fair, equitable and legally sound decisions without fear or favor are the hallmarks of his time on the bench,” Casper said in a statement. “His many opinions on complex issues of law in notable cases have had a great impact on jurisprudence.”