Sen. Murkowski Urges DOJ to Probe Ex-Clerk’s Retaliation Claim

Sen. Lisa Murkowski wants the Justice Department to investigate a whistleblower’s claim that she faced retaliation from the Alaska US Attorney’s office leaders for reporting a judge’s sexual misconduct.

In a post on X, the Alaska Republican called allegations uncovered in a Bloomberg Law article about a woman who alleged she was a victim of sexual misconduct and then retaliated against “deeply disturbing” and said DOJ “must investigate this complaint thoroughly and quickly.”

The whistleblower filed her retaliation claims with the independent US Office of Special Counsel, which investigates federal sector retaliation. But DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Office of the Inspector General also have jurisdiction to review the actions of department employees.

A DOJ spokesman declined to comment about Murkowski, and spokespeople for the department’s Inspector General didn’t immediately respond.

The whistleblower, whose original report of abuse from then-Alaska federal judge Joshua Kindred was substantiated by a judicial investigative panel and led to his resignation last month, said in the OSC filing and an interview with Bloomberg Law that Alaska office supervisors denied her a permanent position as a federal prosecutor because she came forward about Kindred’s misconduct.

Murkowski had previously praised Kindred’s Trump-era nomination to fill one of Alaska’s three federal district court slots. The senator had also supported President Joe Biden’s selection of S. Lane Tucker to serve as Alaska’s US attorney. Tucker was head of the office when the former Kindred clerk worked there as a temporary prosecutor.

Tucker, who also applied to an earlier vacancy on the federal bench in Alaska, which remains open, is named in the whistleblower complaint as part of the leadership team that allegedly retaliated against the former clerk.

“It is bad enough that the actions of Josh Kindred severely undermined the public’s faith in the district court, but if the United States Attorney’s Office retaliated against the victim of those actions as alleged, that goes beyond the pale,” Murkowski said on X.

When asked about the whistleblower’s claim earlier Thursday, before her X post, Murkowski said in an interview she hadn’t yet read the article but asked to see it. She did say that since revelations of Kindred’s conduct surfaced July 8, she’s been asking candidates for the new judicial vacancy to provide “their views on workplace environment, sexual harassment.”

“I ask specifically: you better tell me anything that you believe could be disqualifying, either from a legal perspective, an ethical or a moral perspective,” Murkowski added. “I need to know that our judges are clean.”

Reagan Zimmerman, a spokesperson for the Alaska US attorney’s office, said in an emailed statement July 30 that when the “office received disturbing allegations, management promptly reported it to the court and the appropriate authorities within the Department of Justice to allow for proper investigation.”

“Throughout this time, we have been mindful of the rights of our employees and the importance of the integrity of the justice system,” she said.

—With assistance from Suzanne Monyak