Dr Gold’s judge accused of racism, misogyny

Eliyahu Tulshinski

August 2, 2022

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who failed to follow the law requiring mandatory recusal when he handed America’s Frontline Doctors founder Dr. Simone Gold an inordinately long prison sentence for a trespassing misdemeanor, despite having propositioned Dr. Gold years earlier, has been accused of ignoring another clear conflict of interest.

According to CNN website Your Black World contributor and former Syracuse University professor Dr. Boyce D. Watkins, Cooper declined to recuse himself from a Judicial Council judging the merits of a judicial misconduct claim against him, instead remaining on the council to vote to dismiss the complaint.

Abusing minority parties and lawyers

A bombshell report entitled, “Black Federal Judge Under Fire For Treatment of Minority Civil Rights Litigants,” includes a review of a 2020 complaint by now deceased “black psychiatric nurse” Jeanette Pollard, who wrote that she was present in the courtroom when Cooper, “abused Asian-American Sikh attorney [Arinderjit Dhali, his client, a] Black plaintiff, and [a] female litigant over several years through coarse language and abusive conduct violating canons of judicial conduct . . .”

Pollard particularly found it inappropriate that Judge Cooper discussed being personally offended by a matter unrelated to the merits of the case.

Judge Cooper, in open court, attacked Professor Jones [a black plaintiff] and his [Indian born] lawyer for daring to file a lawsuit against a retired federal judge … Cooper interrupted, cut Attorney Dhali off, and rudely declaimed that [he] was deviating from norms with his double punishment “because no one has been brash enough to bring” a case against a retired judge…

Your Black World reports that the complaint contains additional quotes of Cooper attacking the minority parties with irrelevant contentions.

Judge Cooper revealed more of his obstinance against the minority litigant and counsel in open court. . . . There, he boasted forth in irrelevancies that insulted Attorney Dhali by bringing in personalized red herrings.”

This is the very pattern that Cooper took in sentencing Dr. Gold, attacking her in her trespassing sentencing hearing for the unrelated activities of her non-profit, and berating the doctor for not preventing deaths unrelated to the doctor and unrelated to the day’s protests.

Complaints hidden from public

Pollard’s death around the time of the filing of her complaint against Cooper makes it difficult to discover the outcome of the complaint, as the Federal Judiciary does not publish the complaints or their outcomes, other than in the rare cases where the judge is sanctioned. Otherwise, the complaint process is confidential and litigants who feel they're being mistreated by a judge are unable to check the judge's records for complaints.

Second complaint

One complaint against Cooper whose resolution is known is that filed by former military Legal Specialist Holly Clark, an administrator at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Clark was present in Cooper’s courtroom as an observer in a 2018 hearing and, like Pollard, says she witnessed Cooper violate the canons of the Judicial Code of Conduct. After her complaint was dismissed by the chief judge of the circuit in which Cooper is seated, she followed judiciary rules and brought her complaint to the nine judges on the Circuit Judicial Council for Cooper’s circuit. One of those nine judges was Cooper.

Being that the canons require federal judges to disqualify themselves in any case in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” such as where they have a “personal bias or prejudice concerning a party,” one would imagine it to be self-understood that a judge cannot judge himself. However, Your Black World tells us,

. . . the complained-of district court judge (Cooper) was voluntarily assigned to the 28 U.S.C. § 352(d) Panel of the Judicial Council empaneled to rule on the Petition for Review of a complaint against himself,” the petition stated, producing in an appendix Circuit-furnished proof that Cooper was present and voting on himself. It then invoked “Nemo iudex in causa sua,” a Latin expression, to indicate that “a lawyer or judge is not supposed to sit in judgment of oneself in a disciplinary proceeding, for it is one of the cardinal rules of natural justice that no one should act as a judge a case in which they have a personal vested interest.” [Emphasis added].

No conflict too big

As with Cooper's use of irrelevant information to attack litigants, his refusal to recuse himself from cases in which he has a conflict of interests appears to be more of a pattern than a one-time event. Cooper, who routinely cut checks to Democratic candidates and the DNC before Obama nominated him to his judgeship, did not recuse himself from a case involving a Democratic operative whom the judge himself called a “professional acquaintance”. This prompted the Washington Times to ask, “Does the judge in the Sussmann case have a conflict of interest?” They reported,

Eyebrows were raised recently when U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper chose to call out prosecutors . . . in the case [of] Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who stands accused of making false statements to the FBI . . . when he met with [them] about fabricated Trump-Russia connections. . . .

Judge Cooper, an Obama appointee, seemed to be putting the prosecution on notice about publicly disclosing factual evidence that might paint Democrats in a bad light. Judge Cooper said, “Keep in mind that the pleadings, in this case, are under a microscope and may be employed for one reason or another by folks for reasons that have nothing to do with the ultimate issues in this case” ... some viewed Mr. Cooper’s decision to address the controversial filing in this fashion as an act of chutzpah.

The reason being is Judge Cooper has a conflict in this case. If you believe in small worlds, Mr. Cooper’s wife Amy Jeffress represents former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who became infamous for her outrageous text messages with former FBI agent Peter Strzok when they were overseeing the hyper-politicized Crossfire Hurricane investigation of then-candidate Donald Trump. Ms. Jeffress previously worked in senior positions at the Obama Justice Department … [Emphases added].

A Newsweek opinion piece noted,

That bias mattered because the trio [one of whom is a client of Cooper’s wife] played a pivotal role in both the Clinton-emails and Trump-Russia probes … This lack of even the appearance of impartiality erodes confidence in our justice system.

According to constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, a liberal Democrat who voted for Clinton, Cooper, after failing to recuse himself, did not hide the very bias that should have led to a recusal. Labeling his analysis, “Tale of Two Trials,” Professor Turley concluded:

The judge sharply limited the evidence that Durham can present which, in the words of Politico, “spares the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee … potential embarrassment.” [Emphases added].

Rather than considering only what was relevant to the defendant’s guilt or innocence, Cooper openly acted to prevent damage to the political party with which he is affiliated. Turley contrasted the treatment that prosecutors received when the defendants were Republicans, concluding that Cooper has,

limited the evidence available to the prosecution, the scope of questioning, and cleared a jury that includes three Clinton campaign donors … To paraphrase Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities,” for a prosecutor, D.C. can be the best of venues or it can be the worst of venues.

Better to be a terrorist than a Trump supporter in Cooper’s court?

Cooper, apparently, does not limit his preferential treatment to Democrat operatives. Politico reported on Cooper’s cozy approach to terrorists.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that Ahmed Abu Khatallah’s sentence is “substantively unreasonably low in light of the gravity of his crimes of terrorism. . . . In sentencing Khatallah to just twelve years for the two support-of-terrorism counts and the property destruction count, the district court [i.e., Judge Cooper] did not — and could not on this record — sufficiently justify its additional variance so far below the sentencing range that would have been appropriate. . . .

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper in 2018 could have imposed a greater sentence on Khatallah — because two of his convictions pertained to terrorism — offering up the possibility of life in prison. But Cooper went with the lesser sentence of 22 years ... The decision instructs Cooper to re-sentence Khatallah. [Emphases added].

Progressive Cooper accused of sexism

Pollard, in her complaint against Cooper, also accused the judge of sexism, citing a Washington Post report on Cooper’s jokes at the expense of a divorcee in a piece entitled, “A judge wrote a hilarious decision denying John McLaughlin’s ex-wife his life insurance payments. Really.”

Looking for laughs? Federal court documents aren’t typically a go-to source. But a judge from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia improbably worked some comedy into his decision in a case about whether longtime political talk show host John McLaughlin’s ex-wife could claim her late ex’s life insurance annuities. . . . U.S. District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper wrote portions in what is clearly McLaughlin’s voice.

Here’s Cooper’s intro: “Question! On a scale from 1 to 10 — with 1 being the chance of a Washington, D.C., professional sports team winning a championship this year and 10 being absolute metaphysical certainty — how certain is the Court that Mr. McLaughlin, upon his divorce from his former wife Christina Vidal, intended for her to benefit from two life insurance annuities that he brought to the marriage?” he wrote. “Any answer shy of 9 would be . . . Wrong! Mr. McLaughlin did not wish his ex-wife to receive the annuity benefits.”

Other such lines were sprinkled throughout … [Emphasis added].

Judge for the elite

Pollard went on, in her complaint, to paint a fuller picture of Cooper’s politics.

I was shocked that such a legal result could occur against a plaintiff who is from one of America’s oldest and most-respected civil rights families, including a past national President of the Progressive National Baptist Convention . . . the law partner of David Dinkins and Basil Patterson . . . and the scholar who established the African-American Studies Program of Yale University. . . “If a Super Lawyers-rated civil-rights authority could have his case thrown out of court without any due process,” I thought, “what justice is left for every other African-American facing systemic racism in the justice system?’”

As I sat there and listened to the Judge talk about his 17 years working as a lawyer before becoming a Judge, it occurred to me to check out his pre-Judge credentials to find out if he was an advocate for the people, or a tool of the ‘establishment’ to suppress the rights of Black people. . . . Not surprisingly, Judge Cooper spent his time as a litigator doing the bidding of the same kind of people . . . large rich white institutions . . . who aggressively try to silence anyone who has the nerve to stand up to them. [Emphases added].

Weaponized Prosecution

Please see previous articles in our series on the politicization of prosecution:

FBI - No time to interview rape victims; plenty for Jan 6 trespass

Police chiefs discourage violent crime complaints to give appearance of reduced crime

Police plant drugs on minorities to meet arrest quotas

FBI fails to act on evidence of planned shootings

FBI/DOJ/Court jail Dr Simone Gold for trespass, politicizing medicine

Meet the judge sentencing January 6th attendees to prison

Will ‘Colbert 7’ get January 6 treatment?

Judge in Dr Gold case applauded anti-free speech socialists disrupting SCOTUS

Stephen Colbert explains why his staffers are not insurrectionists

Feds pressure Jan 6 defendants to falsely confess to ‘knowingly’ trespassing