{"id":137023,"date":"2025-11-17T17:10:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T01:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/17\/dojs-profound-missteps-get-the-judicial-roast-treatment-and-comey-defense-gets-grand-jury-access\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:10:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T01:10:24","slug":"dojs-profound-missteps-get-the-judicial-roast-treatment-and-comey-defense-gets-grand-jury-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/17\/dojs-profound-missteps-get-the-judicial-roast-treatment-and-comey-defense-gets-grand-jury-access\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ\u2019s \u2018Profound\u2019 Missteps Get The Judicial Roast Treatment And Comey Defense Gets Grand Jury Access"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick just dropped a legal mic on prosecutors in the James Comey<\/a> case. In a blistering 24-page opinion, he ordered the Department of Justice to turn over all<\/em> grand jury materials related to the Comey indictment to the defense. (Though the government has asked for a stay in complying <\/a>with the order while the file their objections.) Because, despite the Trump administration\u2019s best efforts, due process is still a thing.<\/p>\n

And if this seems highly unusual, well, you\u2019re not wrong! But prosecuting your political enemies over the objections<\/a> of career prosecutors <\/a>is also highly unusual (or at least it used to be, pre-2025) so that\u2019s where we\u2019ve landed.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick\u2019s opinion reads like a cold call of a law student who spent the semester playing Fortnite instead of doing the reading. He all but accuses the investigative team of fumbling their way into a constitutional ditch:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That is spectacularly<\/em> harsh judicial language. When a judge says your work \u201cundermined the integrity\u201d of the grand jury, that\u2019s not a critique \u2014 that\u2019s a diagnosis.<\/p>\n

And the cure? Full disclosure of all the grand jury materials.<\/p>\n

Lest anyone miss the severity, Fitzpatrick says the quiet part loud<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe court recognizes this is an extraordinary remedy, but given the factually based challenges the defense has raised to the government\u2019s conduct and the prospect that government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings, disclosure of grand jury materials under these unique circumstances is necessary to fully protect the rights of the accused.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Judges don\u2019t casually throw around phrases like \u201ctainted the grand jury.\u201d That Fitzpatrick is using the term at all should make DOJ attorneys want to crawl under the table and rethink their career choices. Because \u201cextraordinary remedy\u201d? That\u2019s judge-speak for \u201cyou left me no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full benchslap \u2014 the second in the case, it should be noted <\/a>\u2014 below.<\/p>\n

v0<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post DOJ\u2019s \u2018Profound\u2019 Missteps Get The Judicial Roast Treatment And Comey Defense Gets Grand Jury Access<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick just dropped a legal mic on prosecutors in the James Comey<\/a> case. In a blistering 24-page opinion, he ordered the Department of Justice to turn over all<\/em> grand jury materials related to the Comey indictment to the defense. (Though the government has asked for a stay in complying <\/a>with the order while the file their objections.) Because, despite the Trump administration\u2019s best efforts, due process is still a thing.<\/p>\n

And if this seems highly unusual, well, you\u2019re not wrong! But prosecuting your political enemies over the objections<\/a> of career prosecutors <\/a>is also highly unusual (or at least it used to be, pre-2025) so that\u2019s where we\u2019ve landed.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick\u2019s opinion reads like a cold call of a law student who spent the semester playing Fortnite instead of doing the reading. He all but accuses the investigative team of fumbling their way into a constitutional ditch:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That is spectacularly<\/em> harsh judicial language. When a judge says your work \u201cundermined the integrity\u201d of the grand jury, that\u2019s not a critique \u2014 that\u2019s a diagnosis.<\/p>\n

And the cure? Full disclosure of all the grand jury materials.<\/p>\n

Lest anyone miss the severity, Fitzpatrick says the quiet part loud<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe court recognizes this is an extraordinary remedy, but given the factually based challenges the defense has raised to the government\u2019s conduct and the prospect that government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings, disclosure of grand jury materials under these unique circumstances is necessary to fully protect the rights of the accused.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Judges don\u2019t casually throw around phrases like \u201ctainted the grand jury.\u201d That Fitzpatrick is using the term at all should make DOJ attorneys want to crawl under the table and rethink their career choices. Because \u201cextraordinary remedy\u201d? That\u2019s judge-speak for \u201cyou left me no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full benchslap \u2014 the second in the case, it should be noted <\/a>\u2014 below.<\/p>\n

v0<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post DOJ\u2019s \u2018Profound\u2019 Missteps Get The Judicial Roast Treatment And Comey Defense Gets Grand Jury Access<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick just dropped a legal mic on prosecutors in the James Comey case. In a blistering 24-page opinion, he ordered the Department of Justice to turn over all grand jury materials related to the Comey indictment to the defense. (Though the government has asked for a stay in complying with the order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":136997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-zKyjLs.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}