WASHINGTON – A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Justice Department from using key evidence as it attempts to pursue a new indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, creating a significant obstacle for prosecutors seeking to revive the case. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the late-Saturday ruling, barring the government from accessing or relying on certain communications that investigators previously used to support charges against Comey. While the ruling does not prevent prosecutors from seeking a fresh indictment, it signals that they may need to proceed without messages exchanged between Comey and his longtime associate, Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman.
Comey was originally charged in September with lying to Congress after denying that he authorized an associate to act as an anonymous source for media stories related to the FBI. Prosecutors leaned heavily on exchanges between Comey and Richman, asserting that the messages demonstrated Comey’s approval for Richman to communicate with reporters on specific FBI matters. Those charges were thrown out last month when another federal judge ruled that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed by the Trump administration. Even so, the decision left open the possibility that the government could attempt to refile charges against Comey, who has pleaded not guilty and accused the Justice Department of pursuing a politically driven case.
Following the dismissal, Richman’s legal team asked the court to block prosecutors from further reviewing data obtained from his computer during search-warrant seizures in 2019 and 2020. Though the leak investigation was later closed without charges, Richman argued that investigators went beyond the warrants’ scope, kept data they should have returned or destroyed, and conducted additional searches without proper authorization. Judge Kollar-Kotelly agreed, issuing a temporary restraining order instructing the Justice Department not to access, review, or share those materials without the court’s approval. She directed the department to certify compliance by Monday afternoon and stated that the order will remain in place through Friday unless modified earlier.
In her ruling, Kollar-Kotelly wrote that Richman would suffer irreparable harm without the injunction, citing ongoing violations of his Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizures. The Justice Department declined to comment on the decision or how it affects its efforts to seek new charges against Comey. It also remains uncertain whether a new case could proceed at all, as Comey’s attorneys argue that the statute of limitations expired more than five years after his September 2020 congressional testimony.
The department has recently stumbled in its attempts to revive other politically sensitive cases as well. A separate effort to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, another figure previously charged by Halligan, collapsed last week when a grand jury rejected the proposed counts.