Prosecutors may move to oust James Comey's defense lawyer [View all]
Source: Politico
10/19/2025 11:45 PM EDT
Federal prosecutors signaled Sunday that they may seek to boot Patrick Fitzgerald, James Comey’s lead defense attorney, because of Fitzgerald’s alleged involvement in disclosures to the media shortly after President Donald Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017. In a submission Sunday evening, prosecutors suggested to U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff that Fitzgerald, Comey’s lawyer and close friend, could have an insurmountable conflict of interest as a result of the disclosures.
Fitzgerald is representing Comey in a criminal case ordered up by Trump and brought last month in Virginia, where Comey faces two felony charges for making a false statement and obstructing a federal proceeding. The prosecutors asked the judge to quickly approve a proposal for a “filter team” of lawyers to sift through evidence in Comey’s criminal case that could clarify Fitzgerald’s role in the eight-year-old disclosures — without breaching Comey’s attorney-client privilege.
Prosecutors proposed the “filter team” to the court last week, but in the new filing they said the request has particular urgency because Fitzgerald played a role in Comey’s release of information that officials later deemed classified. “Based on publicly disclosed information, the defendant used current lead defense counsel to improperly disclose classified information,” prosecutors Tyler Lemons and Gabriel Diaz wrote. “This fact raises a question of conflict and disqualification for current lead defense counsel.”
The new filing is short on details, but references a Justice Department Office of Inspector General report from 2019 that found Fitzgerald acted as a middleman when Comey sought to get information to the media about what he viewed as improper efforts by Trump to get him to pledge loyalty in the days before his firing.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/19/james-comey-lawyer-criminal-case-00615102
Link to FILING (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26190529-comeyfiltermot101925/
Link to FILING (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26190529/comeyfiltermot101925.pdf
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