A Utah judge with more than 20 years experience on the bench will have to be temporarily replaced while he serves a six-month suspension without pay for using his social media accounts to bash President Donald Trump.
Suspended
Judge Michael Kwan should have known better than to infringe upon the judicial code of conduct by using his office to make partisan statements about the president. Kwan’s Facebook and LinkedIn posts, shared between 2016 and 2017, diminished “the reputation of our entire judiciary,” wrote Utah State Supreme Court Justice John A. Pearce, who authored the opinion stripping Kwan of his authority.
In the meantime, locals from the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville will have to go to another judge for rulings, replacing the anti-Trump jurist with an ostensibly fair-minded judge who isn’t biased against the president’s supporters.
On Inauguration Day in January 2017, 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?”
Kwan’s public outbursts grew more bold as time progressed. In February 2017, he posted other disparaging remarks about Trump, writing, “Welcome to the beginning of the fascist takeover. . . We 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.”
Repeat offender
Besides publicly voicing his hatred for Trump, Kwan was suspended for making “politically charged comments to a defendant in his courtroom and improperly using his influence as a judge to seek the removal of a member of the court’s staff from the premises,” according to court records.
“Judge Kwan’s behavior denigrates his reputation as an impartial, independent, dignified, and courteous jurist who takes no advantage of the office in which he serves,” Pearce continued.
Fortunately for Utah’s Trump supporters, Kwan is only a small claims judge who handles misdemeanors and minor violations. First appointed by city officials in 1998 for a six-year term, the now-disgraced judge later won an election to keep his position on the local court.
Although Kwan’s attorney, Greg Skordas, said his client knows that judges must be held to a higher set of standards, he nonetheless argued in court that the judge’s social media posts qualify as protected free speech. Skordas said that his client was disappointed with the severity of a six-month suspension.
Tough crowd
Normally a Republican stronghold, Utahns are split down the middle in a “statistical tie” regarding their approval of the president’s job performance. Nationally, Trump enjoyed an 88 percent approval rating among Republican voters in January, compared to just 74 percent in Utah.
Although his political affiliation is unknown, Kwan was previously reprimanded for making public comments critical of politicians from both major parties. Skordas argued in court that his client got caught up in the passion following the 2016 election and made comments “in haste” that he came to regret.
“He certainly regrets making those statements and is committed to not doing anything like that again,” the judge’s lawyer said.
While city officials are reportedly satisfied with the punishment, six months may not be long enough for a partisan mud-slinger who often forgets that he has been entrusted to interpret the law in a non-partisan manner. Only time will tell if Kwan will learn his lesson.
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