Washington — A federal magistrate judge on Tuesday rejected the Justice Department's 11th-hour attempt to file new criminal charges against two former FBI counterintelligence officials, saying prosecutors could not take that step without judicial review first.

In a tense exchange, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia expressed shock and anger at the Justice Department for filing an unsworn and unsigned superseding complaint against the two FBI officials after midnight on Tuesday on the public court docket, noting it was never reviewed by him to establish whether there was probable cause a crime was committed.

Filing an unsworn complaint on the public docket and bypassing judicial review, he said, is unheard of and raises questions about the DOJ's motivations.…