Judge Deals Setback to JD Over Comey   12/08 06:17

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge has dealt a setback to Justice Department 
efforts to seek a new indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, 
temporarily barring prosecutors from using evidence they had relied on when 
they initially secured criminal charges.

   The ruling Saturday night from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly 
does not preclude the department from trying again soon to indict Comey, but it 
does suggest prosecutors may have to do so without citing communications 
between Comey and a close friend, Columbia University law professor Daniel 
Richman.

   Comey was charged in September with lying to Congress when he denied having 
authorized an associate to serve as an anonymous source for media coverage 
about the FBI. In pursuing the case, prosecutors cited messages between Comey 
and Richman that they said showed Comey approving of Richman interacting with 
journalists for certain FBI-related coverage.

   The case was dismissed last month after a different federal judge ruled that 
the prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully 
appointed by the Trump administration. But that ruling left open the 
possibility that the government could try again to seek charges against Comey, 
a longtime foe of President Donald Trump. Comey has pleaded not guilty, denied 
having made a false statement and accused the Justice Department of a 
vindictive prosecution.

   After the case was thrown out, lawyers for Richman sought a court order to 
bar prosecutors from continued access to his computer files, which the Justice 
Department obtained through search warrants in 2019 and 2020 as part of a media 
leak investigation that was later closed without charges.

   Officials searched the files for communications between Comey and Richman 
they could use to build the case against Comey. But Richman and his lawyers say 
prosecutors exceeded the scope of the warrants, illegally held onto 
communications they should have destroyed or returned, and conducted new, 
warrantless searches of the data.

   Kollar-Kotelly on Saturday night granted Richman's request for a temporary 
restraining order, instructing the department "not to access the covered 
materials once they are identified, segregated, and secured, or to share, 
disseminate, or disclose the covered materials to any person, without first 
seeking and obtaining leave of this Court."

   She gave the Justice Department until Monday afternoon to certify that it is 
in compliance with the order. She said her order would remain in effect through 
this coming Friday, "or until dissolved by further order of this Court, 
whichever comes first."

   "Petitioner Richman has also shown that, absent an injunction, he will be 
irreparably harmed by the ongoing violation of his Fourth Amendment right 
against unreasonable seizures arising from the Government's continuing 
retention of the image of his computer and related materials," she wrote in 
granting Richman's request.

   A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Sunday on the ruling 
and what it meant for revived charges against Comey.

   It is not clear that the Justice Department could secure new charges against 
Comey even if it could rely on Richman's communications. Comey's lawyers have 
said the statute of limitations on such a case -- the congressional testimony 
at issue was given on Sept. 30, 2020, or more than five years ago -- has 
expired.

   A separate attempt by the Justice Department to a file a new indictment 
against New York Letitia James, another perceived Trump adversary who was also 
charged by Halligan, failed last week when a grand jury refused to sign off on 
charges.