To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to you in your capacity to remedy breaches of the rules of judicial conduct. It seems readily apparent that on Monday, April 16, 2018, United States District Court Judge Kimba Wood engaged in partisan political conduct which has resulted in a substantial and widespread lowering of public confidence in the courts among reasonable people. Worse still, she did so under the color of authority while presiding over a very high-profile case in Manhattan U.S. District Court. Millions of Americans now doubt the impartiality of the court due to the seemingly obvious and readily apparent partisan political motive behind Judge Wood
’s
decision to compel Michael Cohen Esq., a lawyer, to violate the attorney-client privilege of his clientele by revealing their identities in open court when it likely would not have been lawful to compel even a sealed disclosure of their names. Still seemingly beyond reason, a sealed disclosure would clearly have met the needs of the opposing party while at least maintaining a modicum of the confidentiality that all such clients of any attorney are guaranteed by the Constitution. Millions of reasonable members of the public who are familiar with the customary safeguards of the attorney-client relationship provided by the system of American jurisprudence either know or will eventually find out that Judge Wood was near the top of a list of candidates being vetted for the position of U.S.
Attorney General in the 1990’s by former first lady and presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton, as well as that Judge Wood also officiated at the wedding of well-known political donor, George Soros, who gave $10,556,793
to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 president
ial campaign. Millions will therefore come to the seemingly inevitable conclusion that such a Constitutional breach as what
happened to Mr. Cohen’s clients
could only have been ordered by a learned legal scholar such as Judge Wood for the partisan political reason of damaging Clinton
’
s political opponents such as Cohen and the people who he was forced to name. Further, even allowing for the sake of argument that compelling such a disclosure in open court could ever be proper -- and to be abundantly and redundantly clear I
don’t
believe that it can -- then still since Judge Wood knew of her previous candidacy for AG during the Clinton administration, she none the less should have ordered her own recusal and allowed another judge to make that determination, if only to preserve the public
’
s confidence in the courts. I must also point out that Judge Wood
’s
previous behavior led her to be known as the
“Love
Judge,
”
who was
involved in a scandal called “
Nannygate.
”
Indeed, she was withdrawn from consideration for nomination to the position of AG for hiring a person who was labeled an
“illegal immigrant” at the time.
Finally, the gravity of this matter requires very serious remediation. There is no appellate
relief possible that can undo the disclosure of the identities of Mr. Cohen’s clients
—
as Judge Wood knew there would not be at the time of her decision. It seems a foregone conclusion that an apology, a pledge not to repeat this forced disclosure and/or Judge Wood
’s
recusal from the matter at hand would not go sufficiently far towards
restoring the public’s trust. Nor would even a public
censure. Signed under Penalty of Perjury, __________________________________ __________________________________ Martin S. Gottesfeld Date