Presiding judge in Flynn case recuses himself

Reuters:
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge presiding over the criminal case for President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been recused from handling the case, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday.
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Reuters could not immediately learn the reason for the recusal, or reach Contreras.
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Contreras was appointed to the bench in 2012 by former Democratic President Barack Obama.

He was also appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in May 2016 for a term lasting through 2023.

That court issues warrants that allow Justice Department officials to wiretap individuals, a process that has been thrown into the spotlight amid the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election.

The most recent controversy related to FISA warrants involves Peter Strzok, a senior FBI agent who was removed from the Russia investigation for exchanging text messages with a colleague that expressed anti-Trump views.

At a hearing on Thursday at the House Judiciary Committee, Republican lawmaker Jim Jordan pressed FBI Director Christopher Wray on whether a former British spy’s dossier of allegations of Russian financial and personal links to Trump’s campaign and associates was used by Strzok to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump’s transition team.
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It does raise the question of whether or not the judge was involved in issuing the wiretap warrants based on the dirty dossier.  The Democrat conspiracy theorists' house of cards appears to be askew at this point.

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