In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved.

My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.

When I accepted the nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, I took pride in becoming part of a federal judiciary that works to make our country’s ideal of equal justice under law a reality. A judiciary that helps protect our democracy. That has the authority and responsibility to hold elected officials to the limits of the power delegated to them by the people. That strives to ensure that the rights of minority groups, no matter how they are viewed by others, are not violated. That can serve as a check on corruption to prevent public officials from unlawfully enriching themselves. Becoming a federal judge was an ideal opportunity to extend a noble tradition that I had been educated by experience to treasure.

My public service began in 1974, near the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, at a time of dishonor for the Department of Justice. Nixon’s first attorney general, John Mitchell, who had also been the president’s campaign manager, later went to prison for his role in the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex and for perjury in attempting to cover up that crime. His successor, Richard Kleindienst, was convicted of contempt of Congress for lying about the fact that, as instructed by the president, he’d ended an antitrust investigation of a major company after it pledged to make a $400,000 contribution to the Republican National Convent