Taint
Earlier today, Jim Comey filed his opposition to the loaner AUSAs’ bid to do a quickie filter team to access materials that — the context makes clear — were seized in the investigation of Dan Richman back in 2019.
Key parts of that opposition were redacted under Sensitive labels applied to discovery, such as this passage describing concerns about the “continue[d]” review of material seized from Richman.
But in his order denying the loaner AUSA bid to accelerate this filter team, Judge Michael Nachmanoff described the main gist of the concern: The two main FBI investigators already peeked at the discussions among lawyers representing Comey back in 2019, including Dan Richman and Patrick Fitzgerald.
He also states that the underlying warrants were “obtained by prosecutors in a different district more than five years ago[,] in an investigation that closed without criminal charges[,] and [] authorized the seizure of evidence related to separate offenses that are not charged here.” Id. at 2. And, there is “reason to believe that the two principal FBI investigators may already have been tainted by exposure” to privileged information. Id. at 3.
Remember, the lead investigator is reportedly Jack Eckenrode, who knows Fitzgerald from way back, from the Libby case. He’s the same investigator who participated in John Durham’s ploy to breach privilege during the Michael Sussmann case in hopes of using that privileged information elsewhere.
The unethical dickishness makes much more sense now.
When the government first raised the privilege protocol with the defense, on October 10 and 11, the defense asked for an opportunity to review the underlying warrants at issue to determine whether Mr. Comey would agree to the protocol. The government refused to provide the warrants before filing its motion for a filter protocol, and did not produce the warrants until late in the evening of October 13, 2025.
They appear to be pushing for this filter review — a filter review entirely excluding Comey, a filter review unlike any of the ones Trump’s attorneys were subjected to — to bulldoze through the possibility they already snuck a peek, and took investigative steps based on that.
This is great stuff, not visible (to me) anywhere else in the media. Keep up the excellent work, please.
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Looks like Nachmanoff might be getting closer to the edge of his tolerance for the actual lawfare here: forcing Comey to retain a lot of expensive lawyers for a long time. The prosecution is more limited to interlocutory appeals in criminal trials, but I can see them trying to get SCOTUS to play along and sit on an appeal for 6 months before denying the appeal and sending it back to the district court.
I don’t think any one thing will push him over the edge. After all, Comey’s twinned argument in the two motions is that the kinds of improper things they’re doing, starting with but extending well beyond Halligan’s installation, is proof of vindictiveness.
I don’t see anything that suggests they will push the judge over the edge. More likely that he will proceed handing them adverse rulings.