Federal judge rescinds retirement plans, prompting criticism from N.C. senator

A day after Federal Appeals Court Judge James A. Wynn notified the White House that he had rescinded his plans to retire, U.S. Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina blasted the move, calling it a “brazenly partisan decision” that would deny President-elect Donald Trump an opportunity to fill the seat.

Wynn, who is based in Raleigh and serves on the Fourth Circuit, was appointed to the Court of Appeals by President Barack Obama in 2010. He had previously served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court. 

In a letter to President Joe Biden dated Dec. 13, Wynn said that after “careful consideration,” he had decided to “continue in regular active service as a United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit.”

“As a result of that decision,” Wynn wrote, “I respectfully withdraw my letter to you of January 5, 2024. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.”

According to the ABA Journal, at least two other federal judges who were appointed by Democratic presidents have rescinded their previously announced retirement plans in the weeks since Trump won a second White House term. 

In the case of Wynn, 70, who was born in  Robersonville, N.C., Tillis noted in a statement on Saturday that Wynn had previously attended a retirement celebration.

Tillis called Wynn’s reversal “a slap in the face to the U.S. Senate.”

“The Senate Judiciary Committee should hold a hearing on his blatant attempt to turn the judicial retirement system into a partisan game, and he deserves the ethics complaints and recusal demands from the Department of Justice heading his way,” Tillis said in the statement.

The controversy comes more than eight years after Senate Republicans refused to hold confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Judge Garland had been nominated by Obama to fill a 2016 vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon on the high court.