Kerry Johnson
Appearances
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
Steven Salzberg spent years at Justice under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He says alarm is actually an understatement about what's happening there. Prosecutors seem to be backing away from cases against people with ties to Donald Trump.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
Salzberg says this actually started on Inauguration Day with Trump's clemency for more than 1,500 people who took part in the Capitol riot. He says it looks like Trump wanted to cut those people a break because they were acting on his behalf.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
It absolutely is. After Trump returned to the White House, prosecutors abandoned their obstruction case against two of his aides at the Mar-a-Lago resort. Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira allegedly helped Trump hide classified documents from the FBI. And Trump's spoken a lot lately about how the Justice Department went after him.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
He says that gave him an appreciation for the plight of other politicians accused of wrongdoing. That's really showed. In recent weeks, DOJ dropped a case against former Nebraska Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. Prosecutors in Nashville withdrew from an investigation against Republican Congressman Andy Ogles.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
Ogles, of course, had introduced a bill that would clear the way for Trump to serve a third term in office. And then on Friday, the DOJ moved to dismiss the case against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
Seven prosecutors quit rather than move to drop that case. They said it looked like an unlawful quid pro quo. Adams and his lawyer have flatly denied that. But the judge in the case, Dale Ho, has ordered both sides to court Wednesday in New York to explain why the prosecution's being dismissed.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
And meanwhile, more than 900 former Justice Department prosecutors signed a letter to salute the people still at justice for responding to ethical challenges with courage and conviction. One of the people who signed is Peter Zeidenberg. He says senior lawyers at justice did not seem to hide they were acting for political reasons to secure Eric Adams' cooperation with immigration agents.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
But the chief of staff to the current attorney general says this DOJ wants to focus on its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts.
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
She does. Bondi seems to be focused on people who help bring cases against Donald Trump. Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith wrote this week, this all seems to be doublespeak, part of a playbook to weaponize DOJ law enforcement like never before against Trump's perceived enemies. And the fear of many of my sources is that the DOJ will on one hand
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Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?
move to help Trump's friends get out of trouble, and on the other, use its vast powers of investigation and prosecution against people who have criticized the president. And Pierre's Kerry Johnson there.
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The clerk in Alaska, for example, never used the judiciary system to report Judge Kindred. She says she didn't know it existed. And that's not uncommon. A national research study last year found many federal courts failed to put required information on reporting misconduct on their websites. Here's retired Judge Jamie Baker.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
One person, a former coordinator, told me there are a lot of people trying to help and do the right thing. But they told me it was a struggle to get information updated on the court's website, so clerks could find out who they can talk to. if they have the courage to speak. Even this coordinator was afraid to talk because of possible reprisal for talking about the courts.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
And then there's inaction. Before the court started to develop more formal systems for reporting abuse seven years ago, and even to this day, clerks are left to figure out a solution for themselves. That's what happened many years ago with a woman who would only use her initial S. S worked for a federal judge in Puerto Rico just out of law school.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Things like that happened quite a few times, she says.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Judge Jose Antonio Fuste copied down a love poem and left it at her desk. S says she struggled with her options, including whether to leave the job early. Eventually, a new law clerk arrived, and the judge made advances to her, too.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
She says she thought it was part of her job to listen to the judge and help him with anything. He was going through a divorce, and he began to text her constantly, to the point where her phone felt like an electric leash.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Together, she and the other clerk developed some strategies for handling the judge, their boss.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
S says she and her fellow clerk, diligent young attorneys just out of law school, dug into legal research about sexual harassment and the ramifications of making a complaint about a federal judge. Ultimately, they've reached out to administrators in the appeals court for the First Circuit.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
NPR could not independently confirm if the complaint reached the chief justice or what happened after that. Still, the judge remained on the bench for years. Until 2016, when he resigned after another clerk reported him to administrators. Judge Fustay did not respond to NPR's attempts to reach him for comment.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
All these years later, the news of his retirement reached S., who's still afraid of the damage it could cause her career if she identifies herself by name. She was afraid to record with me using her own voice, so we found someone else to speak her words on tape verbatim.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Retirement stops any court investigation in its tracks. Often, a judge under scrutiny will keep their benefits and sometimes still show up at the courthouse. That's how things went down in the most notorious case in recent years.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Alex Kaczynski rocked the federal courts in 2017. That followed a wave of MeToo complaints in Hollywood, the business world, media, and politics. Kaczynski apologized to his former clerks for making them feel uncomfortable. He said he had a, quote, broad sense of humor. But seven years after that scandal, Kaczynski's still working in the law.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
He's even filed court papers for clients with cases before the Ninth Circuit, the same one he left amid a national outcry. The administrative office of the courts points out that Judges Kaczynski, Fustay, and Kindred are off the bench. It says the courts continue to make improvements to foster an exemplary workplace.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
For most people, the courts are where accountability does happen when they have problems at work. But for the people who work in those very courts, their rights are not clear. Protections for them are not set out under law, and judges' colleagues and friends can be the deciders. there are efforts to change that. Congresswoman Norma Torres, a Democrat from California, is leading the charge.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Last fall, she convened a group of experts on the Hill to try to draw attention to the problem.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Torres says the majority of judges behave properly, but the ones who don't face little accountability.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Torres says the courts operate in a patchwork, so no one's in charge of overseeing all the systems that employees use to report misconduct. Torres had Congress set aside money for two research studies to understand the holes in the system. Greta Goodwin led one of those efforts for the Government Accountability Office.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
That pressure built. He texted that she looked like a, quote, fucking Disney princess and that he liked her blue pants. He even asked how things were going with her boyfriend.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The federal courts say the study validates the steps they've already taken to improve conditions for workers there. But Torres says that's not enough. She's committed to using the power of the purse, the appropriations power, to try to get the judiciary to do more. She's working alongside Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson. Good morning. Pleasure to see you, sir.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Johnson's walking us through the Rayburn House office building and into the Capitol to introduce the Judiciary Accountability Act. His bill would make clear the same legal protections for workers in the private sector and the executive branch also apply to the 30,000 people who work for the federal courts.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The legislation did not get a hearing before Congress left town last year, and Republicans now control both chambers of Congress. Reforms to the judicial branch are not a priority for them. From the Supreme Court on down, the judiciary has been resisting oversight, and so far, the judges are getting their way.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The people who work for federal judges, for probation departments, for public defenders, they can't go to the executive branch for help. and it's not clear they can sue in courts either.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
In fact, many former clerks told me it's hard to even find a lawyer to give any advice because these complaint systems are so hard to understand and because the lawyers worry about getting on the bad side of a federal judge who may decide their own cases someday. Aliza Schatzman.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The federal courts say they've done a lot to make sure workers are treated with dignity and respect. Court administrators say employees now have several ways to report problems. And when it comes to abusive or hostile behavior, they have more power to complain about their bosses than people who work outside.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
But I've been told clerks who run into trouble on the job still face tremendous pressure to remain silent. A bad word from a judge can derail a clerk's career, while judges serve for life. I heard it again and again. Those judges who behave badly, often it's an open secret inside the courthouse. But nobody does anything about it.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Many clerks graduated from top law schools and pride themselves on their smarts and resilience, only to break down in tears when they talk about hostile treatment they suffered working for federal judges. The judiciary protects its own, one clerk told me. Another said, I can handle a tough boss. I can't handle an abusive boss. I just wish more people would talk about it.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
She stayed in Alaska, but she got a new job as a federal prosecutor. And this, she hoped, would put an end to the ordeal. As it turned out, that was wrong. The voice you've been hearing is not her real voice, although they are her words verbatim. We're using a voice actor because she was too afraid to talk. You'll understand why in a moment.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
About a week after she left the judge's chamber, she ran into him at a party. I'm going to tell the next part of the story entirely from allegations in the court papers. That's in part because retelling it to me was too painful. At the party, he tried to get her to sit next to him on the couch. Eventually she left, but she got a text from him saying he needed to talk to her.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
It was cold that night, so the judge suggested they chat inside his apartment. Once inside, the judge insisted she come to the bedroom. At first, she sat on the corner of the bed but he wanted her to lay down. Then, she told investigators, he grabbed her breast. She tried to pull his arm off, but he was really strong.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
I just remember thinking, like there's nothing I can do about this, she told the investigators. This is about to happen. Like I always felt like this thing he could not touch, and finally he felt like he could touch. He took off her pants and performed oral sex on her. A judge's control over the future of a young lawyer is real and lasting.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
With only a phone call, a judge can open doors to a lucrative job at a law firm or shut them permanently. And there's no one really policing what happens inside a judge's chambers beside the judge themselves. Unlike people who work for private companies, nonprofit groups, or Congress, employees of the federal courts usually cannot sue for mistreatment.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
For nearly a year, I interviewed 42 people, current and former workers within the federal court system, about their experience. They're men and women who work for more than two dozen judges, appointed by presidents from both major political parties. I heard from people whose self-confidence was shattered by judges who screamed so loudly others could hear from the hallways.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
People who were fired after a week or two on the job for no clear reason. Some describe sexual harassment like in the case of the Alaska clerk. Many more shared episodes of bullying, and others said they faced discrimination because they had a disability or were pregnant, like Jessica Horton.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
When she graduated from law school at age 24, she felt lucky to get a job as a law clerk to a new federal judge. Horton says she disclosed her pregnancy a couple months before she started work. And at the time, it didn't seem like it would be much of a problem for the judge, who was herself a mom.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Inside those chambers, the judge's word is law, and Horton fell in line. She worried so much about missing work that she told the doctor she wanted to avoid a C-section because of the recovery time. She refused an epidural, too. because she had read about complications with them.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Horton ended up back at work for an event 11 days after her first child was born.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
She returned to work fighting infections and bullying from another clerk in the chambers. Her clerkship lasted a year, and leaving wasn't a possibility in her mind.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
She started counting down the days.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Starting out, Horton had been so excited about learning from the judge, having a mentor, maybe someday becoming a judge herself.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Her son is now nine years old. Sometimes they drive by the courthouse and she reminds him that's where he slept underneath her desk as a baby. Horton decided to talk to me on the record, in part because she's left the legal profession, and things can get pretty tough for clerks who speak out.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
When the Alaska clerk reported the assault, she told a colleague who had been assigned to mentor her, but that mentor said she also had been coerced.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Her mentor later said the judge's power and authority contributed to the pressure she felt, and he told her he would have sway over a job she wanted. The former clerk heard from friends the judge was furious she'd told anyone. When she ran into him in the hallway at the courthouse, she says he warned her to keep her head down and shut up.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The court system ultimately launched an investigation into the judge, Joshua Kindred. What followed were multiple rounds of interviews with investigators who cross-examined her and stress-tested her credibility. The court investigation took more than a year. All the while, two other young women clerks in the judge's chambers continued to work by his side.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began to shut things down, a recent law school graduate started a new job all the way across the country in Alaska. She accepted a coveted post as a law clerk for a federal judge.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Judge Joshua Kindred told investigators that the sexual experience was consensual and that he had no, quote, sinister intent. The special committee found the judge deliberately lied when he said nothing sexual had happened between them.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
But the committee did not reach a conclusion about whether the judge sexually assaulted the former clerk, finding there was enough evidence to say the judge committed misconduct without even resolving that issue. Judge Kindred did not respond to NPR's attempts to reach him for comment. The clerk said she felt let down by the process. I want to be careful here.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
And you respond in the way that you feel comfortable. After you left the job, the judge met up with you and assaulted you. And the Ninth Circuit report is less than clear in concluding that. But it's certainly clear in your mind and the mind of your attorney that is exactly what happened.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The federal judiciary points to the departure of the Alaska judge as a demonstration the system works. The Administrative Office of the Courts, which sets policy from Washington, says they've taken extensive steps to protect clerks and other workers since the MeToo movement swept the country in 2017. And they say they hold judges to the highest standards.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
But our investigation uncovered problems with the reporting system in the judicial branch. For one, there's a widespread culture of fear. And there's a good reason for that. Jamie Baker is a former judge who also worked in the White House and the military.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Not only is the relationship intense, it often comes with a huge age gap.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
Gabe Roth is executive director of Fix the Court. He's pushing the federal courts to be more accountable. Here's the way the system works. Let's say a clerk has a problem. The first option is something called informal advice.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The next step, however, gets more complicated.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
The courts say there are about 500 people across the system who can hear about problems and offer advice. A lot of that happens informally, through mediation, where a clerk or other court employee can raise concerns and get an apology or even a job transfer. Then there's the most serious option, making a formal complaint. But staying anonymous is not guaranteed, clerks say.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
I talked about that with Aliza Schatzman. She runs the Legal Accountability Project, a database where clerks can share honest feedback about judges, the good and the bad. I spoke with a clerk recently who talked about going in for an interview with investigators. One of the investigators was planning a party for the judge this clerk complained about.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
And when the interview ended, the clerk walked out into the hallway and there was the judge about whom they were complaining.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
She didn't know anyone else there, only the judge.
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
But hard data about misconduct in the court system can be hard to come by. For example, no one tracks that first step we mentioned, the informal advice.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
A report in November did show that more court employees are using the dispute resolution process, but few of them are law clerks. There are more than 1,400 federal judges with life tenure, and they each have at least two clerks. Just seven complaints came from law clerks between 2021 and 2023. But the federal courts interpret that low number to mean something different.
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NPR Investigation: Harassment In The Federal Court System
I asked Aliza Schatzman about that. Just a few months ago, the head of the administrative office of the U.S. courts, Judge Robert Conrad, came out and said the numbers of complaints filed by law clerks, EDR complaints, is very low, which to him means that they have kind of a middle manager problem in the judiciary. And it's not the judges. What do you take that data to mean?
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
This was really a last chance for prosecutors to explain their decisions and defend themselves. It also could accomplish some measure of accountability for people who were hurt on January 6, 2021. Some of those police officers, there are civil lawsuits that are ongoing that continue against Donald Trump and others.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
And it's also really a record for history at a time when Trump and many other Republican lawmakers are clinging to fake claims about election fraud in 2020 and calling those people who stormed the Capitol patriots.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
Yeah, every step of this investigation has been a battle. And even late last night, Trump tried one last time to get a judge. to block this report, but he did not succeed. On social media overnight, Trump said the voters had spoken and returned him to the White House. And remember, the Supreme Court handed him a significant victory last year, ruling he had some immunity from prosecution.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
The justices there took so long to decide, the clock ran out on this indictment here in Washington, D.C. And really, over the past week, Trump's former aides at the Mar-a-Lago resort had asked Florida Judge Eileen Cannon to block this report, even though that case was no longer in front of her. It was really an open question whether we'd see it up till last night.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
Jack Smith wrote there was enough evidence to convict Trump at trial of these four felony charges related to efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. Smith says the ultimate decision in this case to charge Trump was up to him and he stands by that. He says even though they couldn't get to trial because of the DOJ view that a sitting president cannot face criminal trial,
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
that this effort mattered, that the rule of law matters, that the example his prosecutor set to fight for justice despite personal costs and attacks and threats, that all matters. Jack Smith wrote, as a prosecutor, you cannot control the outcome, but you can do your job in the right way for the right reasons. And he says they did.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
You know, special counsels are typically invited to testify in Congress once their work is done. Democrats have asked the Justice Department to save all of Smith's files. Republicans want to investigate him. And President-elect Trump has vowed retribution. Jack Smith actually resigned before he could be fired by Trump.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
And other prosecutors who worked on the Smith investigations have been making plans to leave the Justice Department, too. Trump's nominees to lead the DOJ and the FBI in the next administration have promised to investigate those investigators. So it could be a difficult road ahead financially and otherwise for a lot of these people who worked in the government.
Up First from NPR
Election Interference Report Goes Public, Wildfires and Mental Health, Pete Hegseth
My pleasure.