U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
A retired senior federal district judge appointed by former President Ronald Reagan spoke out in an interview with Politico published on Friday, tearing into the Supreme Court for a pattern of unexplained "shadow docket" decisions allowing President Donald Trump to do whatever he wants despite lower courts providing clear evidence his actions are illegal.
Judge Mark Wolf, who previously served as Chief Judge of the Court of Massachusetts, already stated earlier this month he was resigning in protest of threats to the rule of law under Trump — and joins a number of other Reagan-appointed judges, often conservatives, who have intervened against the president.
“When Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa all started hitting 60 home runs or more when no one in the history of baseball except Babe Ruth and Roger Maris had ever hit 60 home runs, there was reason to suspect something improper was going on,” Wolf told Politico's Kyle Cheney. “When the president wins 17 out of 20 cases decided on the shadow docket, to me at least it raises a concern about whether there’s a possible lack of impartiality.”
The judge is far from alone in his criticism of the Supreme Court, as an unprecedented wave of lower court judges are speaking out, frustrated that their exhaustively researched legal reasoning to block the Trump administration's more controversial actions keeps getting overturned by the justices with no explanation and no guidance.
Wolf also faulted Congress for burying the corruption allegations against Trump's border security adviser Tom Homan, who is accused of accepting a $50,000 bribe from undercover FBI agents.
“If there’s uninvestigated possible criminal activity by Mr. Homan, I think that should be a matter of significant public concern. And if the tape recordings and other evidence indicate that he did not engage in any illegal conduct, I think he deserves to be exonerated in the court of public opinion,” said Wolf, adding, “I don’t know why Republicans in Congress, as well as Democrats, don’t ask for that.”
“I don’t know where the American people are today,” said Wolf. “When they’re repeatedly told that judges who rule against a president — they are corrupt and they should be impeached. I’m afraid if the courts do not have the support they need … our rule of law and our democracy will be doomed.”