The criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey is barreling toward a speedy trial that would begin Jan. 5, 2026 — and the federal judge overseeing it starkly warned the Department of Justice against trying to slow it down.
Comey pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Wednesday morning in Virginia to charges of making a false statement and obstruction of proceedings.
U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff warned prosecutors that “there should be no reason this case gets off track” due to government reticence to grant Comey’s defense lawyers security clearances to review documents in the case.
One is Patrick Fitzgerald, known for his previous work as an anti-corruption prosecutor. The other is Jessica Carmichael, who has fought high-profile cases that touch on national security issues and represented former WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange.
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Prosecutors stated that “a lot” of classified material is at stake in the five-paragraph indictment that includes only two counts across one-and-a-half pages.
“I’m a little skeptical of that. This does not appear to me to be an overly complicated case,” Nachmanoff said.
“We’re a bit confused. We see this as a simple case as well,” Fitzgerald later said in court.
Later in the hearing, the judge put the government’s lawyers on notice that the court document review process under the Classified Information Procedures Act wouldn’t be an excuse to slow the case down. Nachmanoff cautioned the prosecution team that the case would move forward “or we will go through the fastest CIPA process you have ever seen in your lives,” a comment that drew muted laughter in the courtroom.
The judge also mentioned the possibility of demanding lawyers work through Thanksgiving, which prompted the new U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, to look up at the judge quizzically from her notetaking.
Halligan, the former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, otherwise remained quiet during the hearing.
The appearance, however, was anything but routine: The former FBI director is facing criminal charges brought by an ex-White House aide who now leads the U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Virginia. During the arraignment, Comey’s defense team previewed what the contentious next few weeks will look like as both sides race toward a possible trial after the winter holidays.
Fitzgerald told the judge that the defense team will seek to dismiss the criminal case as a “vindictive” and “selective” prosecution, legal doctrines that touch on what could be retaliatory motivations for filing criminal charges or unfairly singling out a particular person for punishment.
“This prosecution was brought at the direction of President Trump to silence” a critic of his politics, Fitzgerald said, adding that his team will also seek to disqualify Halligan with a formal court ruling that she was unlawfully appointed.
For years, Trump has been publicly calling for Comey to be charged with vague “crimes.” Halligan — who served as one of Trump’s personal lawyers to fight criminal charges over his classified document hoarding at Mar-a-Lago — was appointed by Trump to lead this U.S. attorney’s office when her predecessor refused to file criminal charges against Comey. Running up against a deadline for a five-year statute of limitations, Halligan raced to present the case herself before a grand jury — which took the rare step of rejecting one criminal count but agreed on two others.
The legal challenge to Halligan’s appointment will now split this historic case into two, with the main one against Comey in eastern Virginia and a separate one about Halligan’s qualifications in another federal courthouse outside of what’s now her prosecutorial district.
Nachmanoff said he will notify the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which could transfer the case to Virginia’s western district — or anywhere in Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina or South Carolina. The judge noted that similar challenges against the temporary U.S. attorneys in Nevada and New Jersey, Sigal Chattah and Alina Habba, have played out this way. (In recent weeks, both have been declared unlawfully appointed by federal judges.)
Although the judge made clear this attempt to disqualify Halligan “will not affect the scheduling of the trial,” it’s unclear what could happen next. If another federal judge concludes Halligan was unlawfully appointed, the case may have to be prosecuted outside her office.
This story has been updated with more information about the arraignment.