Month: November 2025

I’ve known Judge Mark Wolf for several years. We’re neighbors in Massachusetts. Over coffee, I’ve come to understand how deeply he cares about justice and the rule of law.

When I served as Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Lauren and I hosted Judge Wolf for lunch in Prague. We talked about democracy and what it means to protect institutions that can seem abstract until they’re under threat.

Lauren and me with Judge Mark Wolf, United States Ambassador’s residence, Prague, 2023

The Czechs understand this. They lived through occupation. They know what happens when the law becomes a weapon instead of a shield.

This week, Judge Wolf resigned from the federal bench after nearly 40 years. He wasn’t tired. He wasn’t ready to retire. He resigned because, as he wrote in The Atlantic, “silence, for me, is now intolerable.”

A federal judge with a lifetime appointment walked away from a position he loved because staying silent felt worse than speaking out.

Judge Wolf spent five decades at the Department of Justice and on the bench. He prosecuted corruption. He sentenced a Speaker of the Massachusetts House to eight years for taking bribes. He ordered the government to pay over $100 million to families of people murdered by FBI informants. He does not speak lightly about threats to the rule of law.

His concerns are specific. President Trump publicly instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek indictments against political adversaries, even when officials saw no proper basis for charges. The FBI’s public corruption squad has been eliminated. The Justice Department’s public integrity section has been gutted from 30 lawyers to five. Inspectors general who detect fraud and misconduct were fired, possibly unlawfully.

As Judge Wolf writes: “What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly.”

What struck me most is what this decision cost him. He loved being a judge. He took pride in a federal judiciary that makes “our country’s ideal of equal justice under law a reality.” But ethical rules limit what judges can say publicly. And he watched in “dismay and disgust” as the administration “dismantled so much of what I dedicated my life to.”

Judge Wolf has worked in countries ruled by corrupt leaders who jail political opponents, suppress independent media, forbid free speech, punish peaceful protests, and block any effort to establish an independent judiciary. He’s not claiming we’re there. He’s telling us where we’re heading if we don’t pay attention.

A lifetime appointment. A career of distinguished service. A position he loved. He set it all aside because speaking out became more important than staying comfortable.

I encourage you to read Judge Wolf’s full essay.