By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – A federal choose in Alaska who abruptly resigned final week subjected his workers to a hostile work surroundings and engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a regulation clerk, a U.S. judicial panel mentioned on Monday.
The ninth Circuit Judicial Council publicly reprimanded and admonished U.S. District Choose Joshua Kindred, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump who submitted his resignation from his life-tenured place on Wednesday after becoming a member of the bench in 2020.
The council in a Could 23 order made public on Monday mentioned it had requested his resignation whereas on the identical time referring his case to the federal judiciary’s high policymaking physique so it may certify the matter for Congress, which may then weigh pursuing a uncommon impeachment of a federal choose.
“The judiciary is entrusted to self-govern and, in doing so, must hold its federal judges to the highest standards of integrity and impartiality,” Chief U.S. Circuit Choose Mary Murguia mentioned in an announcement.
Kindred, 46, didn’t reply to requests for remark. He informed the council his “great sin here was the fact that during this period of time I treated my law clerks as friends rather than employees,” in line with the nine-member panel’s 30-page order.
The order mentioned an investigation discovered that Kindred created a hostile work surroundings for his clerks by incessantly utilizing inappropriate language and discussing with them his intercourse life, their relationships and his “disparaging” views of colleagues and public figures.
An investigative committee discovered that Kindred had an “unusually close relationship” with one of many clerks, and {that a} week after she started a job in a prosecutor’s workplace, Kindred requested her out for drinks, kissed her and grabbed her buttocks.
Days later, the clerk mentioned the choose invited her to an residence he was staying in, requested her to lie down on a mattress with him and carried out oral intercourse on her, the committee discovered.
The Judicial Council mentioned that Kindred later lied to the investigative committee by denying having a sexual encounter with clerk.
