New Delhi, Oct. 8 -- Inside Alexandria's rocket docket, a routine hearing becomes a measure of whether rules still outrun politics.

Alexandria -Before sunrise, a line formed along Duke Street, television crews lifted tripods into place, and the courthouse plaza filled with onlookers. By midmorning, the former FBI director at the center of a long political fight was expected to walk into a federal courtroom and hear the counts read. His appearance, a routine step on paper, carried a larger weight, because the proceeding has become a test of how federal justice behaves when politics speaks loudly around it. That tension framed the arraignment in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, even before the clerk called the case.

Prosecutors have...