A judge appointed by President Donald Trump ran a PR company for corporations that made clients and staffers “uncomfortable” about the ethical and legal implications, according to a new report.
Judge Jennifer Mascott, a former law professor who now sits on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, worked out of her office at public relations firm Adfero once a week for at least six months until things fell apart, Politico reported Thursday.
“People asked me ‘Is this legal?’” a former employee told Politico. “I don’t know. ‘Is this ethical?’ Certainly not.”
Mascott oversaw staffing, business development, and client relations, splitting her time between judicial duties in Wilmington and Philadelphia and her responsibilities at the PR company, according to the report.
Adfero had historically provided nonpartisan public relations and marketing services to corporate clients and trade associations including PhRMAand the National Retail Federation. In its final months, Mascott brought consultants with “strong MAGA credentials onto the team.”
Fourteen former employees and clients, granted anonymity to discuss internal details, confirmed the arrangement created significant concerns among staff and business partners.
“Judicial ethics experts said Mascott’s operation of the firm falls in a gray area, given its nature as a family business,” Politico reported.
“The U.S. court system’s code of conduct for judges generally allows continued participation in ‘a closely held family business,’ but warns such participation ‘may be prohibited if it takes too much time or involves misuse of judicial prestige or if the business is likely to come before the court on which the judge serves.’” Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law specializing in judicial ethics, raised that very issue.
“If she is logging time there and it has the potential to interfere with her judicial duties, that is a no-go,” Geyh said. ,Mascott reportedly told staffers questioning the arrangement that her management posed no ethical problem provided she recused herself from matters involving the firm, its clients, or potential clients.
A former client cited the arrangement as a reason for seeking services elsewhere.
“She came in and was running the organization while being a federal judge, and it got very weird,” the client said. “All of a sudden, staff started leaving, and we saw that as an inflection point that it was time to move on.”
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