Judiciary
Longtime federal judge assigned to James Comey criminal case
In this July 2003 file photo, Louise Flanagan is sworn in by then-Chief Judge Terrence Boyle of the Eastern District of North Carolina in Greenville, North Carolina, as her husband, Michael Flanagan, watches. (Photo by Jessica Webb/The Daily Reflector via the Associated Press)
A federal judge in North Carolina, who has more than two decades of experience on the federal bench, has been assigned the new criminal case charging former FBI Director James Comey with allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan of the Eastern District of North Carolina received the random case assignment Tuesday after a grand jury indicted Comey on allegations that he threatened Trump when he posted a photo on Instagram depicting seashells in an “86 47” pattern in May 2025.
Flanagan, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, has presided over thousands of cases during her time as an Article III judge. The U.S. Senate confirmed Flanagan as a federal district court judge in July 2003. She previously served as a federal magistrate judge and worked at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Washington, D.C., before it merged with Dentons, according to a story by Law.com.
She received media attention in 2011 for overseeing a terrorism conspiracy prosecution that secured convictions of several defendants. In United States v. Sherifi, a jury found defendant Hysen Sherifi guilty of conspiring to attack the Quantico Marine Corps Base. Flanagan sentenced Sherifi to 540 months, or 45 years, in prison, according to Law.com.
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