Biden-appointed judge hearing FBI director Comey's case advocated for sentencing reform
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia: The federal judge in Virginia assigned to hear former FBI director James Comey's criminal case is an ex-public defender who long advocated for sentencing reform and was appointed to the bench by Democratic former president Joe Biden (Sept 26).
US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff was assigned late on Thursday after Comey was indicted as President Donald Trump presses a retribution campaign against political opponents.
Comey is set to appear before Nachmanoff on Oct 9 for arraignment on charges of making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Prosecutors allege Comey lied to Congress in 2020 when he denied authorising others to serve as anonymous sources in media reporting about an FBI probe. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Comey has denied wrongdoing, saying on Thursday he has "great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I'm innocent."
JUDGE IN COMEY CASE WAS APPOINTED BY BIDEN
Cases are randomly assigned, but Trump lashed out on Friday, calling Nachmanoff a "Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge" on social media.
Nachmanoff, born in Washington, DC, in 1968, graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and has spent most of his career in Virginia. He became a federal magistrate judge in 2015 before Biden nominated him to the district court in 2021. The Senate confirmed him 52-46, with three Republicans voting in support.
PUBLIC DEFENDER ADVOCATED REFORM
Before joining the bench, Nachmanoff spent more than a decade as a federal public defender, representing indigent defendants and campaigning against mandatory minimum sentences.
In a 2009 article he co-wrote, he argued that such policies "inevitably result in disproportionately harsh punishments and unwarranted disparity".
In 2007, he argued before the US Supreme Court in a case that secured judges’ discretion to depart from sentencing guidelines in crack-cocaine cases, helping address disparities that had disproportionately affected Black Americans.
At a 2015 American Bar Association event, Nachmanoff called those disparities "one of the most pernicious and corrosive examples of unfairness in our criminal justice system".
PREVIOUS CASES ON THE BENCH
As a magistrate judge, Nachmanoff presided over the 2019 arraignment of Rudy Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman on campaign finance charges, releasing them on US$1 million bonds.
As a district judge, he has handled politically sensitive matters. Last November, he sentenced a former health worker to two years in prison for illegally accessing the medical records of late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In May, Nachmanoff sided with the Trump administration in a dispute that cleared the CIA to fire its top doctor, a figure criticised by some Trump allies for her past COVID-19 vaccination policies for the military.
