Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
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A federal District Court judge in Massachusetts with Trump Derangement Syndrome has resigned from his position as a senior-status judge in protest against President Donald Trump. “President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes,” declared U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf in an essay he wrote, which was published by The Atlantic. “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.”
Echoing the progressive Left, the now-retired Judge Wolf accused President Trump of posing an “existential threat to democracy” and of “dismantling the offices that could and should investigate possible corruption by him and those in his orbit.”
Mr. Wolf complained to NPR in an interview that “this president repeatedly, overtly directs the Department of Justice to prosecute his perceived political enemies at the same time that the Department of Justice is not investigating possible corruption by people close to the president and people who are doing things to profit the president and his family.”
This wayward Reagan appointee did not resign in protest against the Biden administration’s crass weaponization of the Biden Justice Department against Mr. Trump and his allies. And Judge Wolf remained silent when the Biden administration attempted to protect Hunter Biden from any serious consequences for his crimes by reaching a sweetheart deal with Hunter’s defense attorneys. It took a conscientious federal district court judge to expose this disgrace. Judge Wolf also remained silent while the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to censure what the administration claimed was “disinformation,” much of which turned out to be true.
Despite his appointment by President Reagan, Judge Wolf was no conservative on the bench. He showed his progressive leanings in at least three of his decisions.
In 2007, Judge Wolf ruled against religious parents in denying that they have a constitutional right to exempt their young elementary school children from lessons on homosexuality and same-sex marriage that were contrary to the parents’ religious beliefs. “Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive,” he wrote. “The reading by a teacher of one book, or even three, and even if to a young and impressionable child, does not constitute ‘indoctrination.’”
Judge Wolf added condescendingly: “We do not suggest that the school’s choice of books for young students has not deeply offended the plaintiffs’ sincerely held religious beliefs. If the school system has been insufficiently sensitive to such religious beliefs, the plaintiffs may seek recourse to the normal political processes for change in the town and state…They are not entitled to a federal judicial remedy under the U.S. Constitution.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has since said otherwise in another case.
In 2012, Judge Wolf ruled that a transsexual murder convict was constitutionally entitled to receive sex reassignment surgery, courtesy of the taxpayers, based on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
In 2018, Judge Wolf sided with illegal immigrants who filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government alleging that they were unlawfully arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Judge Wolf ordered their release from detention.
The now-former Judge Wolf is also a globalist. He has served as the Chair of the Integrity Initiatives International, which is coordinating a campaign to create a new International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC). The idea of creating an International Anti-Corruption Court is not a new one for Mr. Wolf. He has been pushing it for more than ten years while serving as a judge, including in an article he wrote that was published by the Washington Post.
Mr. Wolf wrote that the proposed IACC would be empowered “to prosecute kleptocrats and their private conspirators for grand corruption,” which he defined as “the abuse of public office for personal profit by a nation’s leaders.” The IACC would have jurisdiction in those cases where it deems that national authorities are unwilling or unable to prosecute such corruption.
In addition to going after national leaders for their own “grand corruption,” Mr. Wolf’s IACC would be able to prosecute a leader who fails to enforce his or her nation’s anti-corruption laws against others due to cronyism.
Retired Judge Wolf believes that the United States should strongly support his IACC proposal. But even if the U.S. should decide not to join this new international court, its leaders would not be out of the woods if Mr. Wolf has his way. He wants to make submission to the IACC’s jurisdiction a condition for retaining membership in such existing multilateral organizations as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Trade Organization. Mr. Wolf has also proposed giving the IACC jurisdiction over non-IACC members’ allegedly corrupt high-level officials if they are accused of committing a related act such as spending or banking any alleged ill-gotten proceeds within a member state’s territory. And he favors authorizing the United Nations Security Council to refer the leader of any country for prosecution in the IACC for alleged acts of “grand corruption.”
In circumstances where the IACC would have jurisdiction, national leaders would not have immunity from prosecution while in office, or subsequently, according to the Wolf plan. Forget about the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. Just imagine how happy Mr. Wolf would be to see his nemesis Donald Trump brought before Wolf’s dream international court on charges of “grand corruption” without regard to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already demonstrated its reckless overreach by issuing arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant even though Israel is not a member of the ICC. Moreover, both the ICC and the International Court of Justice have shown their contempt for real justice and truth with their shameful display of moral equivalence between the Jewish democratic state of Israel and Hamas. There is no reason to expect anything better from yet another globalist kangaroo court that would intrude upon national sovereignty.
Former Judge Mark Wolf boasted in his Atlantic essay that “Over the past 35 years I have spoken in many countries about the role of American judges in safeguarding democracy, protecting human rights, and combatting corruption.” Yet for more than a decade, Mr. Wolf has championed an International Anti-Corruption Court with authority in some cases to infringe on the national sovereignty of the United States and to override America’s judiciary. His asserted fealty to the U.S. Constitution rings hollow in this respect.
