Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) has decided to withdraw his nomination of Centre County judge Thomas K. Kistler (pictured, right) for the state’s Supreme Court after a racist email was made public last week, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Wolf’s decision to withdraw the Kistler’s nomination came after news broke that the latter had sent a racially insensitive email, depicting a black couple talking through glass by a jailhouse phone. The heading of the email read “Merry Christmas from the Johnsons.”
In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Kistler said he didn’t remember sending the December 2013 email, which more than 20 people received, but he didn’t deny sending it, either.
Kistler said that if he did send the email, it wouldn’t have been meant to mock African Americans. Kistler said the message behind the email would have been “Christmas goes on, even for the people we put in jail.”
Wolf had previously praised Kistler as “extremely qualified.”
