Joshua Kindred (inset left) in a court photo, pictured (right) during a hearing in 2015 in his capacity as the Alaska Oil and Gas Association’s regulatory counsel (Energy GOP/YouTube screengrab)
A federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2020 resigned in disgrace Monday from a lifetime position in Alaska after a lengthy report concluded that he should voluntarily step down or else face possible impeachment for lying to an investigative body that he “never had any sexual contact” with one of his former law clerks.
A panel of judges on the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit on Monday released its conclusions about the Special Committee’s investigation into and report on Joshua Kindred following allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
“Judge Kindred created a hostile work environment for his law clerks by engaging in unwanted, offensive, and abusive conduct, and treating the law clerks in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner,” a summary of the conclusions began. “Judge Kindred engaged in misconduct by having an inappropriately sexualized relationship with one of his law clerks during her clerkship and shortly after her clerkship while she practiced as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Alaska.”
While the evidence did not support a finding that Kindred retaliated against those who complained about him, he did lie to the “Chief Judge, the Special Committee, and the Council,” the report continued.
Here are some takeaways from the Special Committee’s investigation.
A law clerk said that Kindred talked about receiving “nude photographs” from a “more senior” assistant U.S. attorney who appeared in his court — and receiving “sexually suggestive text messages from a local attorney who regularly appeared before him.”
In a “professional setting,” the committee found, Kindred talked about his divorce, used terms like “f—ability” and declared he was not “hoe-ignorant,” among other things.
For instance, Judge Kindred made inappropriate and often vulgar comments to his law clerks such as “I’m just gonna pay for [a law clerk’s boyfriend’s] next ass tattoo”; “You’re going to the big leagues. You might be better in the butt leagues”; “I’ve never been invited to an orgy by a stranger before”; “I got asked out by a waitress which actually made me feel way less insecure about being single again, which was nice”; and “So it looks like I might need a judicial tinder profile.”
In October 2022, after a law clerk got a new job as an assistant U.S. attorney, the two met for drinks and thereafter went to Kindred’s chambers, where the judge kissed the woman, the report said. Days later, after a pizza party in his honor, the committee said there was an oral sexual encounter in a bedroom at Kindred’s temporary residence (sometimes described as an Airbnb), an encounter that he falsely denied.
The investigating committee said that Kindred claimed that he and the former clerk had only had “a two-hour-long conversation about their relationship and the law clerk’s future employment opportunities,” in the words of the report.
But a text exchange on Oct. 17, 2022, indicated that was not true.
“Didn’t imagine your exit interview would involve that much oral,” Kindred was quoted as saying, with the former clerk replying “*argument,” as in oral argument.
Under questioning about the texts, Kindred said “I’ve not seen [this law clerk] naked, so that doesn’t make any sense to me,” the report said.
The Judicial Council said that text messages and “testimony and firsthand observations of Judge Kindred’s law clerks” established that he fostered a hostile work environment.
“In these messages with his clerks, Judge Kindred ridiculed his judicial colleagues, divulged personal details of his marital life, and made inappropriate comments about sex, drinking, and drugs,” the report said, before adding in a footnote with specifics about “highly inappropriate text messages” at issue:
To name a few, Judge Kindred told his law clerks, “Who gives a f— about ethics, we need to get you paid,” joked about “punching multiple Supreme Court justices,” and said he’d bring Patrón, heroin, and “whip-its” to a chambers dinner party.
In light of the above, the judicial counsel unanimously ordered that Kindred face a public reprimand for conduct “prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts and the administration of justice,” and urged him to resign voluntarily or else face an impeachment referral, in part, for lying that a “sexualized relationship” did not occur.
“Judge Kindred did not make false statements because of some lapse in memory. Rather, Judge Kindred admitted that he deliberately misled the Special Committee despite knowing the correct and honest answers. When asked if he lied to the Committee, Judge Kindred responded, ‘I—I did,’” the report said. “Judge Kindred also acknowledged that he was provided multiple opportunities to correct the record but chose not to. Indeed, even after receiving the Special Committee report, which found that Judge Kindred had been dishonest throughout the investigation, Judge Kindred still stuck to his false narrative.”
Ultimately, Kindred resigned.
In February 2020, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, supported Kindred’s nomination by saying that he was “well-qualified” to serve as a federal judge.
“One way that you that Mr. Kindred has good judgment, he went to the same law school I did,” Murkowski said, also praising his experience across the public and private sector in criminal, civil, and administrative law, and at the federal and state level. “Mr. Kindred has long called Alaska home. He was raised in our local schools, he’s raising his young family there, he comes from good family, he’s married into good family. He’s a good Alaskan.”
At the time of Kindred’s nomination, a poll of Alaska Bar Association members reportedly ranked him 16th out of 20 possible candidates for the seat.
Kindred himself in an interview noted that he was “one of the youngest people in the applicant pool” and expressed that he wasn’t sure he “was deserving of such an opportunity,” but he applied.
“It was humbling, but I realized I was one of the youngest people in the applicant pool, and I made peace with it,” he told The Federal Lawyer. “I felt that they had a lot of good candidates, and that I definitely wouldn’t be the one chosen. So I just let it go and forgot about it.”
Part of the judicial misconduct report recounted that Kindred acknowledged being in over his head.
“Judge Kindred then provided detailed information about the circumstances under which he came to the bench, mostly related to the fact that he only had a few weeks to observe his colleagues before the courthouse began shutting down due to the pandemic. He explained that for the first year or so of his time as a federal judge, the law clerk at the center of the allegations was ‘often the only person I would interact with face to face,’” the report said. “Judge Kindred admitted that he was overwhelmed with his job and would often discuss this with the law clerk.”
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