James Comey will appear in court for arraignment on Wednesday, after the Justice Department took the unprecedented step of criminally charging the former FBI director and Trump foe in late September.
Comey was ordered to appear in court in Northern Virginia at 10 a.m., nearly two weeks after a grand jury at the same federal courthouse indicted him for lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation five years ago.
Comey said he was innocent, saying in a video after his indictment“let’s give it a try.”
What will happen when Comey is impeached?
During the arraignment, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff will likely formally inform Comey of the charges against him and give him the opportunity to enter a plea.
The judge could also consider Comey’s pretrial release conditions. Typically, defendants like Comey who are asked to turn themselves in are released on their own recognizance, meaning they are not required to post bail, but they can sometimes be forced to pay “surety” if they fail to appear in court, said Mitchell Epner, a partner at the New York law firm Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner.
And the judge could set either a trial date or a date for hearing the motions. There is speculation that Comey will file a motion to have the charges dismissed, either alleging that he is the victim of vindictive prosecutions or by arguing that the U.S. attorney who brought the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was designated as disabled. But it’s unclear what his lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, will do.
“Patrick Fitzgerald is a hell of a lawyer, and I wouldn’t want to predict what strategy he’s going to follow here,” Epner said.
The arraignment will take place in open court, but cameras are not permitted.
Typically, defendants are also arrested the same day they turn themselves in for their arraignment, which would involve authorities taking photos and fingerprints and checking for outstanding arrest warrants, according to Epner.
Even though Comey’s lawyer was summoned, FBI leadership considered carrying out a “showy” arrest and “criminal walk” before his indictment, according to several sources familiar with the matter. told CBS News last week. Some FBI supervisors pushed back on the plan and one was suspended, a source said.
Epner said, “I can’t imagine a magistrate signing an arrest warrant at this point.”
Where is Comey’s impeachment taking place?
Comey will be arraigned at a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, part of the Eastern District of Virginia. The case is likely to be heard there because the charges are based on a 2020 Senate hearing that Comey attended remotely from his Virginia home.
If the case goes to trial, Comey will face a jury made up of residents of suburban Washington, D.C. — an area that generally disadvantages President Trump.
Some 62.6% of voters in the Alexandria Division of the Eastern District voted last year for Democrat Kamala Harris, and 34.1% voted for Mr. Trump. The division includes Alexandria and several other northern Virginia cities and counties.
Who is the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan?
The case against Comey is being overseen by Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who was juror in the role just days before Comey was charged.
A former Florida insurance lawyer, Halligan previously worked as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and was part of his defense team in a federal case accusing him of mishandling classified documents. Most recently, Halligan worked as a White House aide.
She took office after the resignation of former Acting U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert.
In an unusual move, Halligan has handled part of the prosecution herself thus far. She personally signed Comey’s indictment and appeared in court when the grand jury returned the indictment.
Two assistant U.S. attorneys from the Eastern District of North Carolina were also added to the case Tuesday: Gabriel Diaz and Nathaniel Lemons.
Who is Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald?
Comey is represented by Fitzgerald, a well-known attorney who retired as a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in 2023.
Fitzgerald was named a special adviser in the George W. Bush administration to investigate a 2003 leak revealing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. He also served as a U.S. attorney in Chicago for more than a decade, overseeing the prosecution of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Who is Judge Nachmanoff?
Nachmanoff was assigned to oversee Comey’s case. He was nominated to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden in 2021 and confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 52 to 46. Three Republicans joined all Democrats in voting yes: Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Nachmanoff previously worked in the district as a public defender and magistrate judge. In the latter role, he oversaw the 2019 impeachment of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two players in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment who were accused of campaign finance violations.
Mr. Trump attacked Nachmanoff, writing on Truth Social that Comey “just got assigned a crooked judge appointed by Joe Biden, so he’s off to a very good start.”
What is Comey accused of?
The first count accuses him of make a false statement during a Senate hearing in September 2020.
Prosecutors say Comey falsely claimed he never authorized a member of the FBI to serve as an anonymous source in reporting on the bureau’s 2016 investigations into Hillary Clinton. In an exchange five years ago, Comey told Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that he stood by his testimony he gave in 2017, in which he said he did not endorse any anonymous sources.
The indictment does not explain the substance of the alleged leak or specify which FBI member Comey is accused of providing authorization for the disclosure.
Cruz’s questions focused on an incident in which Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, gave inconsistent accounts about a 2016 Wall Street Journal article about one of the FBI’s investigations into Clinton. McCabe said he told Comey after the story broke that McCabe had authorized staffers to speak to the Journal, but Comey says McCabe told him no such thing. The Justice Department’s internal watchdog sided with Comey and found that McCabe lacked candor.
In a CNN interview, McCabe said he had not been approached by the FBI as part of the Comey investigation and doubted the indictment was against him, noting that he did not ask Comey for permission to release information to the media because he did not need permission.
Comey was also questioned by the Justice Department watchdog for publishing notes about his interactions with Mr. Trump to his friend, Daniel Richman, who shared their contents with The New York Times. THE watchdog found Comey raped FBI policies, but did not disclose classified documents.
The second count against Comey accuses him of obstructing a congressional proceeding by “making false and misleading statements” during the same 2020 hearing.
And in a rare gesturethe grand jury declined to indict him on an additional count of lying to Congress during the 2020 hearing, related to testimony Comey gave to lawmakers that he did not recall receiving a tip from the intelligence community that referenced Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump.
Many critics say Comey’s indictment is the result of Mr. Trump’s determination to punish a longtime political enemy. The president fired Comey in 2017, and the two men have traded barbs since then. Mr. Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Comey before he was charged, and the president celebrated the indictment shortly after it was handed down.
Before Comey was charged, some members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia circulated a memo arguing that charges should not be filed, a Justice Department source familiar with the matter said. told CBS News.
The Justice Department defended its handling of the case. After Comey’s indictment, Bondi said in a statement that the decision “reflects the Justice Department’s commitment to holding accountable those who abuse their positions of power for misleading the American people.”
Daniel Klaidman and Scott MacFarlane contributed to this report.
