Judge Walton Journeyed From Football to FISA Court

Judge Reggie Walton was appointed to judgeships by three presidents, and football helped him get there, the judge told Bloomberg BNA.

“I probably would not have gone to college” but for a football scholarship because “I didn’t come from a family with a lot of resources,” the senior judge for the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia said.

That opportunity set Walton on a journey that has included senior White House policy positions and serving as the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Walton — who is black and had run-ins with the law as a youth — says that though criminals should be ...