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The Justice Department indicated in a court docket submitting final evening that it’d attempt to disqualify James Comey’s legal professional, Patrick Fitzgerald, from its case towards the previous FBI director.
The submitting cited Fitzgerald’s alleged involvement in media disclosures when Comey was fired as FBI chief in 2017, claiming that Comey used the lawyer “to improperly disclose classified information.”
“This fact raises a question of conflict and disqualification for current lead defense counsel,” the filing said. The Justice Department asked the judge to implement a “filter team” to review evidence that could “inform a potential conflict and disqualification issue for the current lead defense counsel,” it said. That evidence included communications between Comey and several attorneys, including Fitzgerald, the filing said.
Prosecutors referred in the filing to a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report that found that Fitzgerald played a role in media disclosures in 2017 after Comey’s dismissal.
The report concluded that some information Comey shared with his attorneys was classified, but said the inspector general “found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.”
When the FBI took steps to delete the information from Fitzgerald’s computer accounts, Fitzgerald “voluntarily and promptly” cooperated with law enforcement, the report said.
NBC News has reached out to Fitzgerald for comment.
Comey was indicted last month on charges that he made a false statement to Congress and obstructed a congressional proceeding. The charges stem from testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 reaffirming his previous comments to the committee denying he had authorized a leak to the media about an FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
Comey has pleaded not responsible to the costs.
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