U.S. Judge Reggie Walton of DC; Today’s Good Guy Award Winner

The District of Columbia presented Reggie B. Walton with a law license in 1974 after she graduated from American University School of Law.

Former President George W. Bush was nominated Judge Walton for a seat on the DC District Court in 2001.

In one matter, Judge Walton was assigned to preside over a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by BuzzFeed for a unredacted copy of Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

After reviewing the redacted report and comparing it to the conduct of the leader of Trump’s Criminal Defense Team, Attorney General William Barr, Judge Walton issued an opinion where he gave Barr the spanking, he so richly deserves by making the following statements.

“The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report, causes the Court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller Report — a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller Report.”

Additionally, Judge Walton criticized Barr for holding a press conference ahead of the report’s release last April, saying he could not “reconcile certain public representations made by Attorney General Barr with the findings” of the Mueller report. He also accused Barr of a “lack of candor” and of producing a “distorted” summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

And finally, Walton said that Barr’s credibility issues led him to the conclusion that he needed to review the unredacted report himself to provide “independent verification in light of Attorney General Barr’s conduct and misleading public statements about the findings in the Mueller Report.” (Ryan J. Reilly)

Kudos to Judge Walton for having the courage and fortitude to call balls and strikes and an unbiased, truthful and factual manner.

As we speak (ca. March 2020), Judge Walton continues to sit as a DC District Court judge in Washington, DC.