Former FBI director James Comey testifies in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017 in Washington, DC, USA.

In a blistering opinion that highlighted a host of potential irregularities in the way the Justice Department under President Donald Trump secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a Virginia federal judge said there may be grounds to dismiss the case.

The record "points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBIagent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding," wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick Nov. 17.

Fitzpatrick was ruling on a request from Comey to see the materials from the grand jury that indicted him on Sept. 25. Although those materials are typically kept secret, even from a defendant, Fitzpatrick said the circumstances of Comey's case warranted giving him access.

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 judge wrote.

Fitzpatrick ordered a court clerk to make grand jury materials available to Comey by 3 p.m. EDT, and for the prosecution to give Comey a "complete audio recording" of the grand jury proceedings by 5 p.m. EDT.

A lawyer for Comey declined to comment. The Justice Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but it filed a motion within hours stating that Fitzpatrick "may have misinterpreted some facts" and asking for the order to be paused. It wants one week to more fully lay out its objections.

Comey was charged with lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding during testimony he gave before a Senate committee in 2020. The charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison, although federal sentences typically fall below top penalties. The ex-FBI director, who has publicly declared he is innocent, pleaded not guilty in early October.

Fitzpatrick is serving an eight-year term as a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, after being selected for that role by the full district judges in that area in 2022. He is a former longtime federal prosecutor who served under Democratic and Republican presidents.

The judge raised a series of potential issues with the way Comey, a longtime critic of Trump, was indicted. Newly appointed prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer to Trump, was installed around Sept. 20, the day Trump posted on social media that Comey was "guilty as hell" and delay was not an option. Halligan secured the indictment on Sept. 25, just five days before a legal deadline for the charges was set to expire.

Halligan was installed after the former head of the office she is now running, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, reportedly expressed skepticism about the potential case against Comey.

Fitzpatrick wrote in his Nov. 17 opinion that there is evidence to suggest the government could have used information protected by attorney-client privilege to prepare its presentation to the grand jury, even if it didn't actually present privileged communications to the grand jury.

"This is particularly troublesome because the government’s sole witness before the grand jury was exposed to a 'limited overview' of privileged material shortly before he testified," the judge wrote.

The Justice Department said in its request to halt the order that the "primary focus" of Fitzpatrick's inquiry was whether privileged information was shared with the grand jury, and the judge seemed to have settled that issue in the government's favor. Addressing other issues is "premature," it said, because Comey and the government haven't submitted their full arguments on those issues.

Fitzpatrick also expressed concerns about whether the grand jury was given accurate information. He said two statements by Halligan to the grand jurors "appear to be fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process."

The statements by Halligan are redacted in Fitzpatrick's public opinion. Still, the judge described potential problems with the statements.

One of the statements, Fitzpatrick wrote, misstated the law, and "may have reasonably set an expectation in the minds of the grand jurors" that the government didn't have the burden to prove Comey's guilt at trial, but instead that Comey had the burden to explain away the government's evidence. He said the statement was responding to "challenging questions from grand jurors."

The second statement, Fitzpatrick wrote, "clearly suggested to the grand jury that they did not have to rely only on the record before them to determine probable cause but could be assured the government had more evidence – perhaps better evidence – that would be presented at trial."

The Justice Department said in its request for a pause on the order that Fitzpatrick may have misunderstood "the full context" of Halligan's statements, but didn't explain further.

Fitzpatrick wrote that defendants are rarely able to access grand jury materials. However, he said the record in Comey's case justified that access because there was specific evidence of irregularities that "'may justify the dismissal of one or more counts of the indictment.'"

On Oct. 29, District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who is presiding over the Comey case as a whole, appointed Fitzpatrick to manage proceedings dealing with how the government handled privileged materials it obtained in the case. Nachmanoff was appointed to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden.

While full district judges are nominated by presidents and then confirmed to their roles by the Senate, magistrate judges are appointed by courts and may then be asked to handle issues within felony criminal cases.

This story has been updated with additional information.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump target James Comey's charges may be tossed over 'disturbing pattern'

Reporting by Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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