Judge Scolds Justice Department In Comey Case

November 18, 2025 4:56 am

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge says the Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” when it secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick said Monday those problems include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to a grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications in the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings. Fitzpatrick ordered the Justice Department to provide Comey’s lawyers with all grand jury materials. The indictment charges Comey with lying to Congress in September 2020 when he suggested under questioning that he had not authorized FBI leaks of information to the news media.