A US judge on Wednesday repeatedly questioned the validity of the grand jury indictment of former FBI director James Comey secured by a prosecutor closely aligned with US President Donald Trump in the latest signal that the charges may be dismissed before trial.
After repeated questioning by US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, prosecutors acknowledged that the final version of the indictment was never presented to the entire grand jury that approved the charges after panel members previously rejected one of the proposed criminal counts.
Lawyers for Comey, one of three prominent critics of the Republican president indicted by Trump’s Justice Department in recent months, used a 90-minute hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, to argue for throwing out the indictment ahead of the trial, currently scheduled for January.
Defence lawyer Michael Dreeben told Nachmanoff the procedural error acknowledged by the prosecution regarding the indictment was yet another reason for dismissal. Comey pleaded not guilty after being charged in September with making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation.
A ruling by Nachmanoff to dismiss the case would be a major embarrassment for Trump’s administration and would highlight a growing wave of scepticism within the judiciary about his efforts to prosecute political enemies.
The hearing focused on Comey’s argument that he is the target of an improper “vindictive” prosecution brought solely to punish him for his criticism of the president, who fired him in 2017 amid an FBI investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russians.
