Another legal showdown involving former FBI Director James Comey is heating up in Virginia, and it’s got more twists than a pretzel factory.
This saga centers on a federal judge granting the Department of Justice extra time to block the release of grand jury records tied to Comey’s indictment for obstruction and false statements stemming from his 2020 congressional testimony, as Newsmax reports.
Let’s roll back the tape to September 25, 2025, when a grand jury indicted Comey on two serious counts related to his earlier testimony before Congress.
Fast forward to November 17, 2025, when U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick dropped a bombshell ruling, ordering prosecutors to hand over audio and records from the lead-up to that indictment.
Not so fast, said the Justice Department, which scrambled with an emergency motion to pause this unprecedented disclosure of sensitive material.
Enter U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who stepped in that same evening to give prosecutors a breather, allowing them until November 19, 2025, to file formal objections, while Comey’s legal team has until November 21, 2025, to respond.
Now, Fitzpatrick’s 24-page order wasn’t just a procedural nudge—it was a scathing critique, pointing to what he called “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” by the FBI and prosecutors.
He took particular aim at the handling of attorney-client privilege during the “Arctic Haze” leak probe, where agents executed four search warrants on Comey’s friend and attorney, Daniel Richman, with seized materials becoming central to the grand jury’s case.
Worse yet, Fitzpatrick flagged that one agent had access to potentially privileged information, and he didn’t hold back in criticizing interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan for what he called “fundamental misstatements of the law” in her instructions to the jury.
Digging deeper, Fitzpatrick noted a troubling remark by Halligan that seemed to suggest Comey’s silence could be seen as guilt—a blatant violation of legal principles, in his view.
Another comment from Halligan hinted to jurors that the government might have additional evidence up its sleeve for trial, a move Fitzpatrick saw as dangerously misleading.
Prosecutors, unsurprisingly, pushed back hard, arguing in their emergency motion that “the Magistrate Judge's new order is contrary to law and the government should be allowed to object to the order.” Let’s be real—while they’re entitled to their day in court, this sounds like a desperate attempt to dodge accountability for what looks like sloppy work.
Adding fuel to the fire, conservative legal commentator Mike Davis of the Article III Project blasted Fitzpatrick, claiming the judge “is going out of his way to carry water for James Comey.” While Davis has a point about the rarity of such rulings, painting this as a partisan witch hunt might oversimplify a messy case.
Still, the broader concern here isn’t just one judge’s decision—it’s whether the Justice Department, under intense scrutiny from all sides, can rebuild trust after years of perceived politicization.
Reuters and The Washington Post have called Fitzpatrick’s order an extraordinary measure to tackle potential misconduct in a prosecution tied to the Trump era, and they’re not wrong—this kind of grand jury material release is almost unheard of. As this legal tug-of-war unfolds, it’s clear the stakes couldn’t be higher, not just for Comey, but for how we view fairness in our justice system.
