A Trump-Appointed Judge Warns Prosecutors Not to Raid Comey's Home at Dawn

A Trump-Appointed Judge Warns Prosecutors Not to Raid Comey's Home at Dawn

A 90-minute hearing ends with a blunt warning

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden spent nearly two hours in Washington on Friday hearing arguments on former FBI Director James Comey's motion to throw out the Justice Department's latest case against him. It is the third criminal case the department has pursued against Comey since the start of President Donald Trump's second term. McFadden heard both sides and put off a decision.

No predawn raid, judge tells the government

Before adjourning, McFadden cautioned the government directly: he would be extremely frustrated if there were some kind of dawn or predawn raid to arrest Comey at his home. Comey's lawyers had told the court that FBI agents had been stationed outside Comey's home several times recently for unexplained reasons, raising fears he could be arrested at any moment. The prosecutor, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak, assured the judge that would not happen.

Prosecutors say the grand jury process is still running

Farahnak told McFadden it was premature to rule because the grand jury investigation is still in progress. The government, he said, is going to the grand jury very diligently. The grand jurors may indict or may not indict, he added. He urged the judge to let that process play out before deciding the motion to dismiss.

A decade-old leak and a fight over the clock

The new case centers on an alleged leak from about a decade ago. Prosecutors say Comey directed staff to share information related to national defense with a New York Times reporter to correct inaccuracies in a Reuters story published the day before, bringing two felony counts: communicating defense-related information to an unauthorized person and conspiring to do so. Comey's lawyer Ephraim McDowell argued the case is time-barred and must be dismissed, saying the government has had 10 years to act and the 10-year statute of limitations has run out. Farahnak conceded the point bluntly, telling the court the government had a clock problem and filed the charge by criminal information, which needs no grand jury vote, to toll the limitations period while evidence is still being presented to a grand jury.

Two earlier cases collapsed

The first criminal case against Comey accused him of lying to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed after a judge found the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed. A second effort remains pending. Critics describe the repeated prosecutions, coming within roughly 13 months after Trump publicly demanded action against Comey and other perceived foes, as part of a retribution campaign. Comey has pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocence.

New evidence could extend the window by six months

Farahnak said investigators have uncovered evidence of conduct as recent as April 2017, which, if proven, could extend the government's charging window by another six months and support additional charges. Under the Speedy Trial Act, next Thursday is technically the last day for the government to seek a grand jury indictment before the pending criminal information must be dismissed. It was unclear after the hearing whether McFadden would rule by then.

A skeptical bench and a harder grand jury sell

McFadden, himself a Trump appointee, sounded skeptical of the information-as-placeholder maneuver but signaled he may simply let the government try for an indictment: if the grand jury refuses, he noted, the whole dispute disappears. He joked that ham sandwiches are harder to indict these days, a riff on the old line that indictments are so easy to obtain that even a ham sandwich can be indicted. Grand juries in the capital have repeatedly rejected charges in politically sensitive cases, and defense lawyers called leaving the case hanging in limbo a very unfair and unjust result.