Meet the judge who will oversee James Comey’s criminal case

The criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey — ordered up by President Donald Trump as he seeks to punish one of his oldest adversaries — will be resolved by the newest judge in the federal court where Comey was charged.

U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a 2021 appointee of President Joe Biden, was randomly assigned Thursday evening to the Comey case, which quickly took on national urgency over questions about Trump’s deployment of federal prosecutorial power to exact revenge.

Nachmanoff, who sits in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, has had some brushes with Trump world before. As a federal magistrate judge, Nachmanoff presided over the 2019 arraignment of two associates of Rudy Giuliani — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — who were charged with campaign finance violations. He released them on a $1 million bond.

More recently, Nachmanoff permitted the CIA to fire a doctor who had been targeted by Trump’s allies for her role advocating for mandatory Covid vaccines in the military during a prior stint at the Pentagon.

Nachmanoff won confirmation to the federal bench on a 52-46 Senate vote, winning the support of just three Republican lawmakers: Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

Before his six-year stint as a magistrate judge, Nachmanoff spent more than a decade as a federal criminal defender, with his office representing high-profile clients such as Al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui and a group of Somali pirates apprehended in 2010 after an attack on a Navy frigate.

Nachmanoff once argued to the Supreme Courtin favor of giving judges flexibility to impose lower sentences in cases in which jail terms would be significantly inflated as a result of crack-cocaine convictions. The justices agreed, ruling 7-2 in his favor, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing for the majority.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misstated who targeted a doctor at the CIA for her role advocating for mandatory Covid vaccines in the military. It was Trump's allies.