Washington– The Justice Department violated the constitutional rights of a close friend of James Comey and must return to him computer files that prosecutors hoped to use for a prosecution. Possible criminal case against former FBI directorA federal judge said Friday.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly represents not only a stern rebuke of the conduct of Justice Department prosecutors, but also poses a significant hurdle to the government’s efforts to bring a new indictment against Comey after an initial indictment was rejected last month.
It is about computer files and communications that Investigators obtained it years ago from Daniel Richmana friend of Comey and a law professor at Columbia University, was appointed as part of a media leak investigation that ended without charges being filed. The Justice Department continued to hold those files and conducted inspections of them this fall, without a new warrant, as it prepared a case accusing Comey of lying to Congress five years ago.
Richman alleged that the Justice Department violated his Fourth Amendment rights by retaining his records and conducting new searches of files without a warrant, prompting Kollar-Kuteli to issue an order last week temporarily barring prosecutors from accessing the files as part of its investigation.
The Justice Department said the request to return the records was merely an attempt to obstruct a new trial for Comey, but the judge again sided with Richman in a 46-page order on Friday directing the Justice Department to return his files to him.
“When a government violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures by scanning a person’s wide range of electronic files, retaining those files long after the relevant investigation has concluded, and then examining those files without a warrant to obtain evidence against another person, what remedy is available to a victim of unlawful government interference?” The judge wrote.
One answer, she said, is to ask the government to return the property to the rightful owner.
However, the judge allowed the Justice Department to submit an electronic copy of Richman’s records under seal to the Eastern District of Virginia, where the Comey investigation is based, and suggested that prosecutors could try to access them later under a legal search warrant.
The Justice Department alleges that Comey used Richman to share information with the media about his decision-making process during the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Prosecutors charged the former FBI director in September with lying to Congress by denying that he had authorized an aide to serve as an anonymous source for the media.
This indictment was dismissed last month After a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the prosecutor who brought the case, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed by the Trump administration. But the ruling left open the possibility that the government could again try to bring charges against Comey, a longtime enemy of President Donald Trump. Comey has pleaded not guilty, denied making a false statement and accused the Justice Department of conducting a retaliatory prosecution.
The Komi saga has a long history.
In 2017, he testified that he gave Richman a copy of a memo he wrote documenting a conversation he had with Trump and authorized him to share the contents of the memo with a reporter. After that testimony, Richman allowed the FBI to create an image, or complete electronic copy, of all the files on his computer and the hard drive connected to that computer.
Then, in 2019 and 2020, the FBI and Justice Department obtained search warrants to obtain Richman’s email accounts and computer files as part of an investigation into the media leak that ended without charges being brought against him.
But Richman said the Justice Department violated his rights by searching his files in September, without a new warrant, as part of a completely separate investigation.