TAYLORSVILLE — A Utah judge now back on the bench after criticizing President Donald Trump says he knew his online comments might cost him his job but he felt obligated to make them.
“I thought about resigning and then posting, but I didn’t think it would have the same effect,” longtime Judge Michael Kwan told the Deseret News. “I thought that it would be more noteworthy if I was willing to risk my career. Then I could look at somebody and say, ‘You agree with me. OK, what are you doing about it?’”
Kwan, a Taylorsville justice court judge of about 22 years, did not lose his job. He was reinstated Dec. 2 after a half-year suspension without pay.
The Utah Supreme Court handed down the sanction in May, finding in part that Kwan “implicitly used the esteem associated with his judicial office as a platform from which to criticize a candidate for elected office,” Justice John Pearce wrote in an opinion.
“I don’t have any complaints about it, not really,” Kwan said of the penalty during a Thursday interview. “They are defending an institution.”
In 2016 and early 2017, Kwan’s Facebook and LinkedIn posts contained sometimes indelicate criticism, Pearce wrote, and the Taylorsville judge made politically charged comments from the bench. Posts like one saying“Welcome to the beginning of the fascist takeover” followed earlier reprimands and diminished the reputation of the state’s judiciary.
Nevertheless, Kwan said he believes he’s in the right job because he has helped people who come before him, largely for misdemeanor offenses. He started one of the country’s early drug courts, focused on connecting offenders to treatment.
“I don’t think anybody’s under the delusion that judges don’t have biases. It’s whether they can set them aside that makes a good or a bad judge,” Kwan said. “I’ve had a number of complaints. Not one has been from a defendant. They’re from government officials.”
Kwan’s Facebook posts could be seen by 800 or 900 friends, he said, a group that swelled to about 5,000 after his suspension.
“As a public servant, you have an obligation to do that — serve the public, to put their interests above your own — and so that’s why I wrote what I wrote,” he said. “And you know, I look back and read through what I wrote and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s actually coming true. It’s happening.’”
Kwan, 57, declined to give his political affiliation and keeps his voter registration private. He noted his sister, Karen Kwan, is a Democratic state representative in the Utah Legislature but his job prevents him from endorsing her or contributing to her campaign.
During his time away from the bench, Kwan said he did work for nonprofits promoting civic engagements among Asian Americans, returning his pay in donations to the groups. He offered to retire while away but said Taylorsville declined to buy out his term ending in 2023 for budget reasons.
The break allowed him to closely follow impeachment proceedings for Trump, but Kwan said he probably won’t mention them in court. He continues to write about politics because he finds it therapeutic, but said he does not post the reflections on social media.
“I’m saving them till I’m retired, or things get better, right?” he said, adding he plans to retire within a few years. “Then I can write about rainbows and puppies.”
Ahead of his suspension, Kwan’s attorney, Greg Skordas, argued the judge has free speech rights and said his client’s 2017 courtroom commentary on Trump was meant to be funny.
But the Supreme Court said Kwan appeared to demean a defendant who had hoped a tax refund could cover court fines by saying in part that “Prayer might be the answer. ’Cause he just signed an order to start building the wall and he has no money to do that, and so if you think you are going to get taxes back this year, uh-yeah, maybe, maybe not.”
Kwan told the Deseret News he intended the comment to be a teaching moment warning against planning a financial future based on money from the government that may not materialize.
“It doesn’t matter who’s in office. It’s when people have this blind assumption that government will work for their benefit, I want to try and correct that,” Kwan said. “People should always be suspicious of authority and question authority. Because if they can’t justify what they’re doing to you, maybe they shouldn’t be doing it.”
Nearly three years ago, he said, he attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington.
“I wanted to hope that he would be a successful president and that he would do good things for the country. But so far, it’s been an interesting three years. We live in interesting times,” he said.
Kwan at one point emphasized the importance of civil rights, although he said such issues don’t arise very often in his courtroom.
“Who would have ever thought that we would be separating children from their families and incarcerating infants?” he wondered aloud. Asked if he was referring to migrants at the U.S. border, he responded, “draw your own conclusions. I’m not going to get in trouble again.”