In reversal, DOJ says Comey indictment was reviewed by full grand jury
In a reversal from what the Department of Justice represented in court and in written filings Wednesday, federal prosecutors said Thursday that the full grand jury reviewed the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who brought the charges, testified Wednesday that the grand jury that indicted Comey voted to indict him on two of the three counts submitted in the original indictment, but that the final revised indictment reflecting the two counts Comey was ultimately charged with was not reviewed by the full grand jury -- only by the jury foreperson and one other grand juror.
Comey's attorney, Michael Dreeben, argued Wednesday that the issue with the grand jury indictment clearly required the judge to throw out the case.
In court filings Thursday, DOJ officials reversed course.
"The official transcript of the September 25, 2025, proceedings before Magistrate Judge Vaala conclusively refutes that claim and establishes that the grand jury voted on -- and true-billed -- the two-count indictment," prosecutors wrote in a filing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tyler Lemons had also attested in court Wednesday that the full grand jury did not see the final indictment.
"Let me be clear that the second indictment, the operative indictment in this case that Mr. Comey faces, is a document that was never shown to the entire grand jury or presented in the grand jury room; is that correct?" U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff asked.
"Standing here in front of you, Your Honor, yes, that is my understanding," Lemons said.
Comey was indicted in September on charges of lying to Congress after Trump forced out previous U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert and installed Halligan, a White House staffer with no prosecutorial experience, then called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to act "NOW!!!" to prosecute Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Rep. Adam Schiff. Comey has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
An attorney for Comey argued during Wednesday's hearing that by replacing Siebert with his former staffer and lawyer, and publicly calling for his political foes to be charged, Trump was "manipulating the machinery of prosecution" and committing an "egregious violation of bedrock constitutional values."
Halligan and other DOJ officials, following Wednesday's hearing, leveled unusual public attacks aimed the judge overseeing the case by mischaracterizing comments he made Wednesday.
"Personal attacks -- like Judge Nachmanoff referring to me as a 'puppet' -- don't change the facts or the law," Halligan said in an statement exclusively to the New York Post.
"A federal judge should be neutral and impartial. Instead, this judge launched an outrageous and unprofessional personal attack yesterday in open court against US Attorney Lindsey Halligan. DOJ will continue to follow the facts and the law," DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said in a statement posted to 'X' Thursday.
The statements refer to an exchange between Judge Nachmanoff and Comey's attorney in which Nachmanoff questioned whether their position was that Halligan was serving as a "puppet" or a "stalking horse" for President Donald Trump in his orders for retribution against Comey.
But Nachmanoff never asserted directly that Halligan was a "puppet," and didn't dispute in court when Lemons flatly rejected that characterization.
"So your view is that Ms. Halligan is a stalking horse or a puppet, for want of a better word, doing the president's bidding?" Judge Nachmanoff asked Dreeben during the exchange.
"Well, I don't want to use language about Ms. Halligan that suggests anything other than she did what she was told to do," Dreeben replied. "The president of the United States has the authority to direct prosecutions. She worked in the White House. She was surely aware of the president's directive."
