AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday, but he’ll need to enlist the services of Doc Brown and Marty McFly to make the trial date on the judge’s scheduling order.
In a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday, Comey entered not guilty pleas for the two counts against him: making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. After waiving his right to have the indictment read to him in court, he asked for a jury trial.
The case has been widely panned as lacking in legal merit, even by numerous conservatives, with many viewing the case as a politically motivated prosecution by President Donald Trump and finding multiple flaws with the documents filed by the president’s recent appointee for U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, his former attorney Lindsey Halligan.
Comey is represented by former federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and experienced criminal defense attorney Jessica Nicole Carmichael. According to The New York Times, Comey’s attorneys plan to file motions to dismiss the case as malicious prosecution, as well as challenging Halligan’s appointment.
District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee, was assigned to the case and set the trial date for January 5, 2026.
The order he signed, however, had an amusing typo, making it impossible for Comey to make it to court to defend himself.
As noted by legal reporter Seamus Hughes, the order Nachmanoff signed setting forth the schedule for pre-trial motions, hearings, and the trial itself listed the trial date of “Monday, January 5, 2025” — that’s nine months ago in 2025, not 2026.
“Fitzpatrick out there drafting a selective prosecution motion and he didn’t even think to account for the fact that the rocket docket already had the trial before the indictment was filed,” Hughes joked in a later tweet, referring to the colloquial term for the Virginia federal court’s often speedy disposition of cases.
Mediaite looked up the case docket on PACER and confirmed that the error was present in the order as filed.
The remainder of the dates on the order refer to dates not yet passed (first round of pre-trial motions due Oct. 20, response briefs due in November, etc. Jan. 5, 2025 was on a Sunday) and Jan. 5, 2026 is in fact on a Monday, as reflected in the order.
A subsequent order was signed by the judge and entered into the docket Wednesday afternoon, ordering the parties to “immediately confer on the entry of a joint discovery order,” but as of the time of publication, no correction to the 2025 trial date has been made.
The typo is all but certain to be corrected within the next few days, so hopefully Comey’s legal team won’t need to search Facebook Marketplace for a DeLorean that can hit 88 mph.
The post OOPS: Judge Signs Order Scheduling Comey’s Trial for Impossible Date first appeared on Mediaite.
