Former FBI Director James Comey was federally indicted in September, but the effort to hold him accountable for some of his alleged criminal acts may have just been upended.

A magistrate judge in Virginia signaled on Monday that the entire Comey indictment could be dismissed because of alleged misconduct by the Justice Department during the investigation and grand jury proceedings, according to Newsmax.

That judge ordered the DOJ to turn over all grand jury materials to Comey's defense team, but the federal judge presiding over the case quickly intervened to temporarily pause enforcement of the magistrate's order.

Comey indicted

On September 25, the DOJ announced that a federal grand jury in Virginia had handed down a two-count indictment against former FBI Director Comey that charged him with making a false statement and obstruction of Congress.

Those charges relate to alleged falsehoods about authorizing media leaks that Comey shared with lawmakers while providing sworn testimony to a congressional committee in 2020.

"No one is above the law," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said at the time. "Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case."

Grand jury materials must be turned over to Comey

In a 24-page ruling on Monday, Virginia Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ordered the Justice Department to hand over all relevant grand jury materials to Comey's defense team by the end of the day, in light of possible misconduct that occurred in those proceedings and in the investigation that led to the grand jury indictment.

"In so finding, the Court recognizes this is an extraordinary remedy, but given the factually based challenges the defense has raised to the government’s conduct and the prospect that government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings, disclosure of grand jury materials under these unique circumstances is necessary to fully protect the rights of the accused."

The judge cited Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)(3)(E)(ii) in his decision, which authorizes a court to disclose otherwise secret grand jury materials in certain limited exceptions, including "at the request of a defendant who shows that a ground may exist to dismiss the indictment because of a matter that occurred before the grand jury."

Possible misconduct in the Comey investigation and grand jury proceedings

In his order on Monday, Judge Fitzpatrick lambasted the DOJ's prosecutorial effort against Comey, in that some of the evidence presented to the grand jury may have included information protected by attorney-client privilege, which in turn had been dubiously obtained from search warrants in 2019 and 2020 for a separate investigation of different alleged crimes, and which may have been mishandled in the intervening years.

The judge, who has already reviewed the audio and a transcript of the grand jury proceeding, also accused interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan of making at least two "fundamental and highly prejudicial" misstatements about federal law to the grand jurors, and further suggested that the grand jury materials provided to him were incomplete and "likely do not reflect the full proceedings."

"The Court need not now determine whether any facts herein have been proven, or whether there is merit to any motion yet to be filed. That task may lie ahead," Fitzpatrick wrote at one point. "Rather, the Court is finding that the government’s actions in this case -- whether purposeful, reckless, or negligent -- raise genuine issues of misconduct, are inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation, and deserve to be fully explored by the defense."

"The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted," the magistrate concluded. "However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding."

Disclosure order temporarily paused

According to CNBC, Judge Fitzpatrick had given the DOJ until the end of the day on Monday to turn over all grand jury materials to Comey's defense team, but that order was subsequently blocked from taking effect by the federal judge presiding over the case, Judge Michael Nachmanoff.

Nachmanoff instead gave the DOJ until Wednesday to file any objections against the magistrate's order, and Comey's defense team until Friday to respond to said objections, after which a decision would be rendered on whether the grand jury materials needed to be disclosed or not.