Judge in Comey case blocks order mandating DOJ hand over grand jury evidence

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News

November 17, 2025, 7:52 PM


The federal judge overseeing former FBI Director James Comey's criminal case on Monday granted a request from federal prosecutors to block a magistrate judge's order that mandated they hand over a trove of grand jury evidence to Comey's attorneys.

The Justice Department requested the stay earlier Monday after U.S. District Judge William Fitzpatrick ordered the Trump administration to turn over a full transcript and recording of the September grand jury presentation by Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, which he said included instances where she may have made "fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process."

Fitzpatrick expressed alarm at what he called "a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps" that may have irreversibly tainted the prosecution of James Comey and violated the former FBI director's constitutional rights, in a scathing opinion granting Comey's attorneys access to a vast trove of grand jury evidence. Fitzpatrick, in his ruling, wrote that, "The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted. However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding."

In his order issuing the stay on Monday evening, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff said he would give the government until 5 p.m. ET Wednesday to file objections to Judge Fitzpatrick's order, and set a 5 p.m. ET Friday deadline for Comey's attorneys to file a response.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-comey-case-raises-alarm-profound-investigative-missteps/story?id=127594703

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Link to STAY ORDER (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.582136/gov.uscourts.vaed.582136.197.0_1.pdf

REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143566895

[ancianita]

1. Biden appointee or no, Nachmanoff's is a ridiculous abuse of "due process." Period.

This alone disproves the Right's constant accusations of judges as "activist." All this judge is doing is wasting even more time for the incompetent DOJ and lawyers to not do what Fitzpatrick told them they didn't do in the first place. Bending over backward to help incompetent lawyering is an unseemly abuse of jurisprudence.

[onenote]

3. it is not a denial of due process. it's standard procedure in a situation such as this.

This situation is governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 59 ( a ), which deals with "Matters Before a Magistrate Judge". A Magistrate Judge is a non-Article III judge who the Article III judge presiding over the case can appoint to handle certain responsibilities, subject to the oversight of the Article III judge. In this instance, On October 29, Judge Nachmanoff, the Article III district court judge presiding over the case, appointed Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick to address in the first instance certain discovery issues. As provided in FrCrimPro 59 (a ), "a party may serve and file objections to [ a non-dispositive order issued by a Magistrate Judge ] within 14 days after being served with a copy of a written order or after the oral order is stated on the record, or at some other time the court sets. The district judge must consider timely objections and modify or set aside any part of the order that is contrary to law or clearly erroneous."

I'm not sure whose "due process" rights you think were abused by Judge Nachmanoff following the applicable Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, particularly since Nachmanoff implemented a highly expedited schedule for addressing objections to the Magistrate Judge's order. The government had asked for the stay to run through November 24 but the judge only gave them until the 19th.

[ancianita]

4. Fine. If that's the judges' system then I guess I wrongly complained.

Across years the "standard fare" of the trumpcult govt's side has been delay tactics, so that was one abuse I referred to. But now that you've explained Nachmaniff's judgeship I realized that I'd mistakenly thought Nachmanoff was an appeal judge who'd let them take another week, a kind of bending-over-backwards abuse, I thought his ruling didn't seem rocket-docket at all. Again, I thought Nachmanoff was an appeals judge and not the presiding judge. So thank you for the correction.

Next time I'll make sure I've had more than one cup of coffee in the am before I post re any pending cases on the legal treadmill of this lawless administration.

[Martin68]

2. This is bad news. The administration 's lawyers broke laws by lying to the jurors in the Grand Jury investigation.

Hopefully it is just a temporary setback. While it is unusual to release Grand Jury evidence, in this case it is necessary to prove that the Grand Jury investigation was severely tainted by Trump's stooges in the DOJ when they lied to the jurors regarding the evidence that the government had against Comey.

[Trumpdumper]

5. This is not bad news.

Everyone deserves protection in court cases — yes, the government too. A stay of an order like this is absolutely normal.

[Martin68]

6. I'm afraid in this case you are mistaken. The Trump administration lawyers and DOJ personnel committed egregious

violations of the laws regulating Grand Jury protocols for the purpose of misleading the jurors and bringing false charges against Comey for which they had no evidence. For example, they told the jurors that they could vote to indict because the government would be producing solid evidence in time for the trial. Judge Fitzpatrick wrote the "the procedural and substantive irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct resulting in prejudice to Mr. Comey." Fitzpatrick reported that Halligan appeared to misrepresent the law as she sought to explain away gaps in the evidence amid tough questioning by grand jurors. At one point, Fizpatrick said, Halligan appeared to suggest that Comey would have to answer those questions himself and explain his innocence at such as trial - a mischaracterization of the government's burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. He also pointed to the fact that the transcript provided to prosecutors does not include presentation of the second indictment for consideration or any deliberation - bringing into question whether the record of the proceedings of the grand jury is complete, or whether the prosecutors deliberately withheld the second indictment from consideration by the jury.

The only way to correct investigate whether the grand jury's decision is severely tainted by misconduct would be to give the defendants' access to the record. Read the whole story in the Post's article on the case. It is eye-opening. Here's a gift like:

https://wapo.st/4iqFZzH