Federal judge warns Justice Department it may be veering close to mishandling evidence in Comey case

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge on Wednesday warned the Justice Department it may be veering close to mishandling evidence in its criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey.

“Right now, we are in a bit of a feeling of indict first, investigate later,” Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick of the Eastern District of Virginia said in the hearing in Comey’s case, which lasted under an hour.

It was an extraordinary remark in a case that has already faced both internal concern from other prosecutors as well as public accusations of the politicization of the Justice Department.

Fitzpatrick focused the hearing around questions he had for the prosecutors about how they had handled data collected under four search warrants in 2019 and 2020, which now could become part of the case against Comey.

The judge pressed prosecutor Tyler Lemons for direct answers on what evidence the Justice Department had in its possession, and whether anyone on the investigative side had looked at records that should be confidential because they are attorney-client communications.

The judge will ultimately determine whether the department properly handled evidence that it collected years ago in a leak investigation involving Comey and his friend and lawyer, Daniel Richman. Comey has been charged with giving a false statement to Congress related to the leak investigation. He has pleaded not guilty.

Comey’s defense lawyer said in court on Wednesday their side believed the former FBI director’s constitutional rights may have been violated but still don’t know enough about the information federal investigators collected years ago.

The defense had requested that the judge give them the ability to review to any information that the government collected as part of their leak probe to ensure that prosecutors can’t “rummage through” old warrants for anything new that could incriminate Comey.

The Justice Department has until Thursday at 5 p.m. to provide Comey’s team with all of the details it recovered while searching Richman’s electronic accounts in 2019 and 2020, as well as all grand jury documents and transcripts.

“The government has had this for five and a half years … this is an unfair burden the government is placing on the defense, but I don’t see another path forward,” the judge said, referring to the enormity of the records the defense will have to review in a short amount of time.

Both Comey and US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan attended the hearing but neither spoke to the judge

The-CNN-Wire
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