https://theconservativetreehouse.co...nd-the-increasingly-sketchy-fisa-application/
Judge Collyer was the FISA judge who wrote the eye-opening
99-page opinion of the FISA abuses reported by NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers, DOJ National Security Division head John P Carlin, and FBI Director James Comey.
Coincidentally (or not) Judge Rosemary Collyer might have been the Presiding FISA Judge who -holding concerns over ongoing FISC revelations in late 2017- recused Rudolph Contreras from further contact with the Flynn case. The other option for a forced recusal would the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts.
As Clarice Feldman writes at
American Thinker: “As the evidence mounts that the warrant was improperly granted, someone – perhaps the chief judge of the district – removed him from further participation in the case, likely because Contreras approved the warrant and its extension. If the warrant was improperly issued, all the evidence it garnered is tainted.”
This brightens the spotlight upon Judge Contreras and his involvement in the FISA Title-1 surveillance authority.
Additionally, if you think about when everything began to break out from the headlines it would be intellectually dishonest not to note all of the FBI conspiracy revelations
happened immediately after Mike Flynn signed the guilty plea. The timing appears to show White Hats within the intelligence apparatus hitting back against the DOJ and FBI for perceived injustice against Flynn.
Regardless of how you view events there’s something about the use of the Clinton-Steele Dossier within the FISA application, and the subsequent approval therein, that doesn’t pass the proverbial sniff test. If Contreras was the authorizing judge; and it seems increasingly likely he was; this puts the judge in the center of the scandal.
What looks even worse for Contreras, amid the backdrop of a conspiracy of intent, is his
direct relationship to former Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s wingman:
2012 […] From 2006 until his appointment, Contreras was chief of the civil division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. He’s the third person to hold that job before being appointed to the D.C. court, joining Chief Judge Royce Lamberth and Judge John Bates.
Contreras began his career at
Jones Day law firm after earning his J.D. in 1991. Gregory Shumaker, partner-in-charge of Jones Day’s Washington office, spoke yesterday about first meeting Contreras when Shumaker was running the firm’s summer associate program. He said Contreras had a gift for connecting with people, a skill that would serve him well on the bench.
In 1994, Contreras was hired by Eric Holder Jr., then the U.S. attorney for D.C., to join that office. Mark Nagle, vice president and general counsel for Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp. and Contreras’ predecessor as civil division chief, spoke about Contreras’ many victories, including his time leading the city’s Medicaid fraud unit. (
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In essence there’s a possibility Judge Contreras might have granted a little more leeway for the ideological endeavors of the DOJ given his prior personal and professional relationships. Was he willfully blind to the weakness and politics within the FISA application?
All of this is likely to come out as the outcry to release the FISA warrant gets stronger. Chairman Devin Nunes and Chairman Bob Goodlatte are directly asking the FISA court for information.
The Department of Justice will likely agree to more releases of investigative documents as IG Horowitz finishes his 14-month-long OIG investigation into the entire enterprise. The inspector general has been looking at the politicization, and subsequent weaponization, of the DOJ and FBI and his report will come out well in advance of the Flynn sentencing.
