Three days ago, when the Anchorage Daily News reported that 46-year-old federal judge for the Alaska Federal District Court Joshua Kindred abruptly resigned his seat on the bench just four years into a lifetime appointment, things smelled fishier than a barroom in Dutch Harbor.
It wasn’t until a 30-page complaint of judicial misconduct against Kindred became public Monday that the reasoning became clear. “In its Order and Certification, the Judicial Council concluded, among other things, that Judge Kindred engaged in misconduct by creating a hostile work environment for his law clerks and by having an inappropriately sexualized relationship with one of his law clerks both during her clerkship and after she became an Assistant United States Attorney,” a statement from the Ninth Circuit said. “The former law clerk did not appear on any case before Judge Kindred while she was employed as an Assistant United States Attorney.”
Previously known only for blocking an attempt to keep Trump off Alaska’s 2024 ballot, Kindred now gives up a lifetime appointment on the bench, a pension, his future legal career and possibly even his law license for behavior that would be condoned by conservatives if Clarence Thomas did it.