appears to have been pretextual given the FBI had cleared him of any wrongdoing and he had since been confirmed to the D.C. Circuit unanimously. He was a member of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review at the time of its first ever session in 2002. On February 6, 2004, Silberman was appointed co-chairman of the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent blue-ribbon panel created to investigate U.S. intelligence surrounding the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In the wake of the resignation of Alberto Gonzales as United States Attorney General in 2007, Silberman was mentioned as a possible successor. In 2008, Judge Silberman, joined by five other senior judges, initiated a suit against the United States, "claiming that when Congress refused to authorize statutory cost-of-living raises for federal judges, it violated the Compensation Clause [of the Constitution]". The Federal Judges Association opposed bringing the suit. The suit was ultimately successful, leading to a nationwide rise in pay for all federal judges as of January 1, 2014. In 2015, Silberman wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, writing that the charge that "President Bush deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam" reminded him of "a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany." In October 2021, Silberman won the first annual Justice Clarence Thomas First Principles Award for his judicial service. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called him "one of the all-time giants of the federal bench" and perhaps "the most influential judge never to have sat on the Supreme Court." Legal opinions As a judge, Silberman authored a number of noteworthy opinions: In In re Sealed Case, 838 F.2d 476 (1988), Silberman held that the procedures for appointing independent counsels violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the separation of powers, because they interfered with the President's ability to ensure that the laws are "faithfully executed". This decision was subsequently reversed by the Supreme Court in Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988), over a vigorous dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia. In a later per curiam decision captioned In re: Sealed Case No. 02-001, 310 F.3d 717 (2002), the court upheld a provision of the Patriot Act that made it easier for law enforcement officers and intelligence officers to share information with each other. This was an important decision involving interpretation