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James Comey will appear in court for an arraignment 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 report to court in Northern Virginia at 10 a.m., almost two weeks after a grand jury in the same federal courthouse indicted him on charges of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation five years ago.
Comey has said he’s innocent, saying in a video after he was indicted, “let’s have a trial.” His wife, Patrice, and daughter, Maurene, a former federal prosecutor in New York, will be in attendance at the proceeding. Maurene Comey was fired by the Justice Department in July and has since sued the Trump administration over her ouster.
What will happen at Comey’s arraignment?
During the arraignment, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff will likely formally inform Comey of the charges he faces and give him an opportunity to enter a plea.
The judge could also consider Comey’s terms of pre-trial release. In general, defendants like Comey who are told to self-surrender are released on their own recognizance, meaning they aren’t required to post bail, but they sometimes can be forced to pay a “recognizance bond” if they don’t show up to 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 to hear motions. There is some speculation that Comey will file a motion to have the charges dismissed, either by alleging he is a victim of vindictive prosecution or by arguing the U.S. attorney who brought the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was appointed invalidly. But it’s not clear what his lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, will do.
“Patrick Fitzgerald is a hell of a lawyer, and I would not want to pre-guess what strategy he’s going to follow here,” said Epner.
The arraignment will take place in open court, but cameras aren’t allowed.
Typically, defendants are also booked on the same day that they surrender for their arraignment, which would involve authorities taking photos and fingerprints and checking for outstanding warrants, according to Epner.
Even though Comey’s lawyer was issued a summons, FBI leadership considered carrying out a “showy” arrest and “perp walk” before his arraignment, multiple 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 arraignment taking place?
Comey will be arraigned at a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, which is part of the Eastern District of Virginia. The case is likely being 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 pool made up of residents of the Washington, D.C., suburbs — an area that generally disfavors President Trump.
Some 62.6% of voters in the eastern district’s Alexandria division voted for Democrat Kamala Harris last year, and 34.1% voted for Mr. Trump. The division includes Alexandria and several other cities and counties in northern Virginia.
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 sworn into the role just days before Comey was indicted.
A former Florida insurance lawyer, Halligan previously worked as a personal attorney to Mr. Trump, and was part of his defense team in a federal case accusing him of mishandling classified documents. More recently, Halligan worked as a White House aide.
She took over the office after the resignation of former acting U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert.
In an unusual move, Halligan has handled parts of the prosecution herself so 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 attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald?
Comey is being 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 special counsel in George W. Bush’s administration, to investigate a 2003 leak that revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. He also served as U.S. attorney in Chicago for more than a decade, overseeing the prosecution of Illinois Gov. 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 in a 52-46 vote. Three Republicans joined all Democrats in voting yes: Sens. 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. While in the latter role, he oversaw the 2019 arraignment of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two players in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment who were charged with campaign finance violations.
Mr. Trump has attacked Nachmanoff, writing on Truth Social that Comey “was just assigned a Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge, so he’s off to a very good start.”
What is Comey charged with?
The first count accuses him of making a false statement in a September 2020 Senate hearing.
Prosecutors allege Comey falsely asserted he had never authorized an FBI staffer to serve as an anonymous source in news reports about the bureau’s 2016 investigations into Hillary Clinton. In a testy back-and-forth five years ago, Comey told Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that he stood by testimony he gave in 2017 in which he said he didn’t approve any anonymous sources.
The indictment does not explain the substance of the alleged leak or specify which FBI staffer Comey is accused of giving permission to leak.
Cruz’s questions focused on an incident in which Comey and his onetime deputy, Andrew McCabe, gave inconsistent stories about a 2016 Wall Street Journal article on one of the FBI’s Clinton probes. McCabe said he told Comey after the story came out that McCabe had authorized staffers to talk to the Journal, but Comey says McCabe told him no such thing. The Justice Department’s internal watchdog sided with Comey and found McCabe lacked candor.
In a CNN interview, McCabe said he hasn’t been approached by the FBI in connection with the Comey probe and doubted the indictment was about him, noting that he didn’t ask Comey for permission to release information to the media because he didn’t need permission.
Comey has also been probed by the Justice Department’s watchdog for releasing memos on his interactions with Mr. Trump to his friend, Daniel Richman, who shared their contents to the New York Times. The watchdog found Comey violated FBI policies but didn’t leak classified material.
The second count against Comey accuses him of obstructing a congressional proceeding by “making false and misleading statements” in the same 2020 hearing.
And in a rare move, the grand jury declined to indict him on an additional count of lying to Congress in the 2020 hearing, relating to testimony Comey gave lawmakers that he didn’t remember getting a tip from the intelligence community referring to Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump.
Many critics believe the Comey indictment is the result of Mr. Trump’s determination to punish a longtime political foe. The president fired Comey in 2017, and the two have traded barbs since then. Mr. Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into Comey before he was charged, and the president celebrated the indictment shortly after it was handed down.
Before Comey was charged, some staff in the Office of the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia circulated a memo arguing charges should not be brought, a Justice Department source familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The Justice Department has defended its handling of the case. After Comey was indicted, Bondi said in a statement the move “reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people.”
Pat Milton,
,
Daniel Klaidman and
Scott MacFarlane
contributed to this report.
