October 1, 2025
The Virginia federal judge set to preside over the criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey is a fair jurist who has dedicated his career to public service and isn’t likely to become rattled amid the widespread public attention to the case, say those who know him.
And while Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff is relatively new to the Eastern District of Virginia district court bench, he already has some experience handling politically sensitive — though less high-profile — cases.
Judge Nachmanoff was nominated to his seat in that district by President Joe Biden in 2021 after serving as a magistrate judge for the same court.
Since then, he’s dismissed several lawsuits involving the performance of the 401(k) plans of Capital One Financial Corp. and Booz Allen Hamilton employees. He also nixed claims from parents alleging Gerber Products Co. allowed dangerous amounts of heavy metals to get into baby food, and presided over a suit from Apple Inc. against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office over the agency’s rejection of its trademark application for “Smart Keyboard.”
And he approved a $23.5 million deal between healthcare administration services company Evolent Health Inc. and its investors, resolving claims that the company damaged shareholders after it allegedly drove an important client “to the brink of bankruptcy.”
“Judge Nachmanoff is an excellent judge who takes his important role seriously. He is smart, practical, and treats all parties fairly,” said Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC partner Daniel S. Sommers, who also represented the investors in that case.
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“Having been both a practitioner and a magistrate judge in the Alexandria Division of the Eastern District of Virginia, he is deeply familiar with its commitment to moving cases in an efficient and expeditious way,” Sommers said.
Read Meet The Poised Federal Judge Presiding Over Comey Case.