Utah Judge Is Suspended for Making Critical Comments About Trump
Judge Michael Kwan of the Taylorsville Municipal Justice
Court in Utah may be on the right side of history, but comments he made challenging
President Donald Trump have landed him in trouble with Utah’s Supreme Court.
The state Supreme Court suspended
Kwan for six months without pay over comments he made in court and online,
although the judge said some of them were meant to be funny.
In a ruling
issued on May 22, the court said Kwan has “engaged in repeated misconduct”
and violated the Utah Code of Judicial Conduct.
Kwan, however, argued that the court’s sanction is an
“unlawful attempt to regulate his constitutionally protected speech.”
In one of the incidents addressed by the court, which
occurred in January 2017, Kwan was presiding over a hearing and had an exchange
with a defendant that veered into commentary about Trump and his tax policies
favoring the wealthy.
From the ruling:
Defendant: And I did not call, but I plan on when I get my
taxes to just pay off all my court fines, because I cannot end up in jail again
for not complying.
Judge: You do realize that we have a new president, and you
think we are getting any money back?
Defendant: I hope.
Judge: You hope?
Defendant: I pray and cross my
fingers.
Judge: OK. Prayer might be the answer. ‘Cause, he just
signed an order to start building the wall and he has no money to do that, and
so if you think you are going to get taxes back this year, uh-yeah, maybe,
maybe not. But don’t worry[,] there is a tax cut for the wealthy so if you make
over $500,000 you’re getting a tax cut.
In response to that exchange, the state Supreme Court stated:
“Judge Kwan contends that this was intended to be funny, not rude. It is an
immutable and universal rule that judges are not as funny as they think they
are.”
The court also cited comments Kwan made on Facebook and
LinkedIn while Trump was a presidential candidate, and then after he was
elected. Most of those comments are pretty mild, with a couple of exceptions.
In response to the leaked audio of Trump bragging
about sexually assaulting women, Kwan wrote, “Think I’ll go to the shelter
to adopt a cat before the President-Elect grabs them all…”
On Trump’s Inauguration Day, Kwan wrote, “Welcome to
governing. Will you dig your heels in and spend the next four years undermining
our country’s reputation and standing in the world?… Will you continue to
demonstrate your inability to govern and political incompetence?”
The judge’s most blunt comment came a month later, when he
posted: “Welcome to the beginning of the fascist takeover…[W]e need to…be
diligent in questioning Congressional Republicans if they are going to be the
American Reichstag and refuse to stand up for the Constitution, refuse to
uphold their oath of office and enable the tyrants to consolidate power.”
Kwan certainly wasn’t lying
there.
Among the judicial code violations the state Supreme Court
cited was that Kwan’s comments undermined “the judge’s independence, integrity,
or impartiality.”
Kwan was appointed to the municipal court in
1998 and then re-elected
by voters, The New York Times reported.
The state Supreme Court had previously reprimanded him twice—in 2005 for a
comment about President Bill Clinton’s extramarital affair and in 2016 for his
role as president of a nonprofit organization that offered political
commentary.