When former FBI Director James Comey was charged final month, prosecutors weren’t prepared or keen to show over the felony case file to his attorneys.
As of Tuesday, after days of disputing what case paperwork they’ve to offer, prosecutors handed his attorneys what they wanted to, an individual aware of the case instructed NCS.
Still, the again and forth over discovery this week highlights the rising rigidity between prosecutors’ method to the Comey case — together with these early makes an attempt to delay turning over some evidence — and Judge Michael Nachmanoff’s efforts to get the previous FBI director to trial in fewer than three months.
The transient however notable discovery standoff additionally has put extra of a deal with the three weeks of management of interim Eastern District of Virginia US Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who has little courtroom experience however was named to the place by President Donald Trump, after she determined to override and sideline extra skilled prosecutors who had doubts concerning the Comey case.
Prosecutors who Halligan introduced in for the courtroom proceedings instructed the choose on the arraignment final Wednesday that they had been nonetheless “getting our hands around discovery” and engaged on the potential of having labeled info declassified to be used within the case.
“In the ordinary course, prosecutors in a case like this would have all their ducks in a row before going to the grand jury,” Jessica Roth, a Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School professor who makes a speciality of felony legislation and ethics, instructed NCS concerning the case developments up to now.
“There’s no signs that the government is interested in a quick trial,” she added. (Roth, earlier in her profession, labored for Comey as a prosecutor. She and Comey are now not in contact.)
Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin on Tuesday defended Halligan’s work on the case. When requested concerning the workplace’s preparedness, he stated she “has the full support of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General to uphold the law and prosecute crime in the Eastern District of Virginia.”
Roth, nonetheless, famous the prosecutors on Comey’s case, together with Halligan, all parachuted into it simply days earlier than the indictment in late September and the arraignment on October 8.
The two attorneys who had appeared at Comey’s arraignment got here from a prosecutors’ workplace in North Carolina, after Attorney General Pam Bondi directed Justice management to ship extra sources to Halligan for the hassle across the case, in accordance with an individual aware of the method.
The DOJ method, Roth stated, “reflects the rushed nature of the case and [its] inverted nature.”
Nachmanoff, at Comey’s arraignment, registered his intent to have the case go to trial rapidly.
“This does not appear to me to be an overly complicated case. There are two counts. It’s a discrete set of facts,” the choose stated in Comey’s arraignment. “I’m not going to let things linger … I will not slow this case down because the government does not promptly turn everything over.”
Even after Comey’s first courtroom look final week, prosecutors sought deadlines later in October for them to show over evidence, whereas Comey’s team requested for information extra rapidly so they might meet upcoming deadlines for the choose.
Four days in the past, Comey’s team told the judge they’d obtained “one page of discovery.”
The Justice Department has stated that a part of the holdup was an absence of settlement over how the evidence could be shielded from being shared outdoors the protection team. Prosecutors stated the evidence within the case is “law enforcement sensitive, for official use only, includes private emails or texts, or is otherwise sensitive because of the private nature of information,” in accordance with one current courtroom submitting.
Protecting the evidence from public consumption additionally typically helps to make sure a good trial, in accordance with courtroom papers and procedures.
Prosecutors additionally instructed the choose they needed to forestall Comey himself from having “unfettered access” to the evidence in his case. They misplaced that battle with the choose and a courtroom order that protects delicate evidence from being shared broadly is now in place.
At the listening to, Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, requested “forthwith” —lawyer-speak for instantly — for the appointment papers of Halligan. He famous most US attorneys’ appointment paperwork are only a web page or two, and his team wanted them instantly to allow them to end writing their problem to her prosecutorial authority, which is due on October 20.
Prosecutors stated over the weekend they’d turned a doc on Halligan’s appointment over to Comey’s team.
Another doable hiccup to the choose’s speedy trial timeline nonetheless lingers: The quantity of labeled info the Justice Department needed to incorporate within the case file.
“How could you not have your arms around that already? That’s where I saw the tension arising at the arraignment,” Patrick Cotter, a white-collar protection lawyer with the legislation agency UB Greensfelder, just lately instructed NCS.
The choose on Tuesday finalized a schedule for the courtroom technique of prosecutors doubtlessly utilizing labeled info at trial, setting hearings in November and December that can preserve the January 5 trial date on observe, in accordance with his newest order.
“We see this as a simple case as well, Your Honor,” Fitzgeralds assist in courtroom on the arraignment, earlier than he expressed his concern of “walking into a buzz saw of classified information the way other cases might.”
“Frankly, we would have thought in the normal course when the government brings a case, they address the classified information issues ahead of time, coordinate within the national security section, and have a plan. And, frankly, we feel like in this case, the cart may have been put before the horse,” Fitzgerald added.
Nachmanoff, too, urged the Justice Department to make choices on the labeled information rapidly, and preserve it easy.
“There should be no reason that this case gets off track because of the existence of some classified information,” the choose stated. “Either it’s not relevant to the case or it can be declassified or we will go through the fastest CIPA (classified information protection) process you have ever seen in your lives.”
NCS’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.