I was wondering when this was finally going to break - @blaisescemama has a great story today on what the heck happened with now ex-U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Catherine Bauer, who some may remember from the early days of the Michael Avenatti saga. Here's a thread!

The (very paywalled) story has a lot of interesting details (check it out here: https://bit.ly/2DIjWVx ), but here's the gist that's going around OC legal circles: Bauer had a 'hot mic' moment in a telephone hearing that included racist and anti-Mormon comments about attorneys.

There's no public transcript of what she said, but several people have told me the anti-Mormon comment involved something about Mormons thinking of themselves as kings. Whatever the details, Bauer was recused from the case that same day. And now she's retiring from the court.

Bankruptcy judges are different from U.S. District judges. They serve 14-year terms instead of lifetime appointments, and their appointments come from appellate courts, not the White House. But, as exemplified in Bauer's work in the Avenatti saga, they have a lot of power.

Bauer was in charge Eagan Avenatti LLP's bankruptcy. She was the judge who ordered $10 million to Avenatti's ex-partner after Avenatti didn't adhere to a payment agreement, and she was the judge who restrained him from spending any fees from cases including Stormy Daniels.

That order prompted Avenatti's first judgment debtor exam, in which he was to testify under oath about his finances. And that's when Bauer began to openly show her distain for both the case and all the reporters who kept showing up in her courtroom.

Despite case law clearing stating judgment debtor exams are public proceedings, Bauer allowed Avenatti to be questioned behind closed doors. @finneganLAT, who led the charge on real Avenatti reporting, asked for a delay to allow @latimes' lawyers to legally object.

Bauer refused, telling Finnegan: "That is my decision. If you have a problem with it, I guess you can talk to your counsel." She let exam go on in private for a couple hours, then left for a conference, leaving a colleague to reject an emergency motion from @latimes, @abc, @CNN.

Avenatti then filed a motion for protective order that stalled the exam for weeks, giving Bauer a chance to do something that earned her public ridicule from at least one colleague: She abandoned the case.

Despite it being hers since the beginning, Bauer said Avenatti's law firm bankruptcy was now solely about a debt collection issue, which she said was the jurisdiction of U.S. District Court, not Bankruptcy Court. That didn't sit well with then-chief Judge Virginia Phillips.

Said Phillips in January 2019:
"She didn't want to learn what she claimed was a new area of law. I have never heard of a judge abstaining because it was a new area of law, but that's what she did."

As a reporter in the courtroom, I was shocked to hear a judge say that about another judge. But Phillips wasn't done. She also questioned Bauer's closure of Avenatti's exam back in July 2018 and the sealing of the transcript.

"That's one of the bedrock principals of the judicial system is that everything that happens here, the public has a right to know what goes on in our courts," Judge Phillips said.

So what does all that Avenatti background have to do with Judge Bauer's current predicament? It all points to what she told @blaisescemama about her retirement having zilch to do with her recusal over the hot mic comments. She'd been planning to leave for a while now, she says.

Given only the circumstance of the recusal, that claim may seem a little suspect. But given Bauer's history, her problems with Phillips and her apparent lack of enthusiasm at times for the whole "being a judge" thing, maybe it's spot on.

Whatever the case, Bauer's official retirement date is Sept. 1. But her cases went to other judges as of July 31, so she's already gone. That's four years before her term was to expire. https://www.cacb.uscourts.gov/news/reassignment-judge-bauer%E2%80%99s-caseload-effective-july-31-2020

It's notable that Bauer wasn't totally free of Avenatti. She was the judge assigned to the trustee's adversary proceeding (that's a big deal that should get more attention), and she had the sham bankruptcy filing that Avenatti lodged to try to stall the judgment debtor exam.

She had a sanctions hearing set for him that was delayed amid his criminal proceedings. But it's still there, and now both cases are with Judge Scott Clarkson. The contempt hearing is set for Aug. 26 in Santa Ana, but it's likely to be delayed.

One last note: After Bauer ditched Avenatti’s bankruptcy, Magistrate Judge Karen Scott oversaw the continuation of the debtor exam, and she kept the courtroom open. Among those in attendance was Jacob Wohl. #theimportanceofopencourtrooms