ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge in the criminal case against James Comey scolded prosecutors in a tense court hearing Wednesday — and demanded that they hand over evidence “immediately” to attorneys for the ex-FBI director, who is charged with lying to Congress about leaking investigative information to media.
US Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick heard arguments inside the northern Virginia courtroom for roughly an hour, pressing prosecutors on the scope of the evidence already obtained, and whether any of it may have infringed on Comey’s attorney-client privilege.
At issue were three search warrants executed by the FBI in 2019 and 2020 as part of the bureau’s Arctic Haze probe into how classified information from the bureau was leaked to news outlets.
Defense attorney Rebekah Donaleski claimed that federal prosecutors had not been forthcoming about what information was being used from at least four warrants — many of which involved Comey’s discussions with his friend and lawyer Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School.
“The defense is gravely concerned,” Donaleski said, “with the government’s conduct,” referencing a potentially “unconstitutional” additional search in September that may have involved privileged information.
Assistant US Attorney N. Tyler Lemons argued that the feds had acted properly, even as he acknowledged that Comey hadn’t always been directly informed of the warrants. Richman was also serving as Comey’s personal attorney at the time.
“From the government’s perspective, this is material from Daniel Richman,” he noted after being pressed by the judge whether Comey had been made aware of the warrants.
Comey’s lawyers are “entitled to know how these warrants were executed,” Fitzpatrick barked at Lemons, adding that the defense should also be told “how the information was used” in the prosecution and given access to grand jury proceedings.
“Right now, we’re in a bit of a feeling of indict first, investigate second,” the magistrate — who was appointed to the bench in 2022 under former President Joe Biden — groused.
He then ordered prosecutors to provide “everything” in writing to Comey’s team by Thursday at 5 p.m.
“You need to give it to them in the manner you have it, with some explanation,” Fitzpatrick emphasized.
Most of the evidence being discussed at the hearing has been in the government’s possession for years — though some was apparently produced in September 2025 amid the grand jury investigation that was launched under the Trump administration.
Left unresolved was the question of whether a so-called “filter protocol” will be used to sift what information is subject to attorney-client privilege.
Prosecutors had requested the procedure, arguing that an investigation could uncover conflict of interest for Comey’s legal eagle Richman.
Comey’s legal team claimed much of the material is covered by attorney-client privilege.
Fitzpatrick will give defense lawyers just two weeks to review the docs, but noted that it was “an unfair burden,” given that federal investigators have had most of the materials for five years.
Comey attended the hearing but never spoke, nor did interim interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who brought the indictment on Sept. 25 against the former FBI boss — alleging one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding.
The charges cited a statement Comey, 64, made before the Senate Judiciary Committee five years ago about whether he authorized anyone else to leak to the press details about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, or the probe into purported collusion between Donald Trump and the Russian government.
Comey’s lawyers convened the hearing to weigh a motion submitted by the defense team about the evidence federal prosecutors plan to use.
On Oct. 27, defense attorneys alleged that “the lead case agents may have been exposed to attorney-client privileged materials belonging to Mr. Comey” — and they sought to block “unlawful review of materials seized from his lawyer.”
“The government has no lawful basis to review materials obtained more than five years ago, in a closed investigation that ended without any charges, pursuant to stale warrants for separate offenses, including materials that remain under seal by another court,” they wrote.
Prosecutors, led by Lemons, in a Nov. 3 reply to that motion again asked for a so-called “filter team” to sift whether “a small subset of that evidence” is subject to that attorney-client privilege.
The case boils down — in part — to a Sept. 30, 2020, hearing in which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned the ex-FBI director about testimony he had given to the same committee in May 2017.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in the earlier hearing had asked: “Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?”
“Never,” Comey answered.
“Question two on [sic] relatively related, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?” Grassley also inquired
“No,” Comey responded.
When pressed about that exchange three years later, by Cruz, Comey said: “I stand by what, the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.”
In their indictment, prosecutors alleged that “statement was false” because Comey had authorized an individual — since-revealed by the defense in court papers as Richman — “to serve as an anonymous source in news reports” for an FBI probe of Hillary Clinton.
Comey pleaded not guilty on Oct. 8 in the Eastern District of Virginia’s Alexandria courthouse.
His trial is currently scheduled for Jan. 5, 2026. If convicted, he could serve up to five years in federal prison.
The ex-spook and his defense team have claimed the case is a political and “vindictive” prosecution brought at the behest of President Trump after Comey declined to close down a separate investigation into purported collusion between the Republican’s 2016 campaign.
