WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the Justice Department’s effort to seek a new indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, temporarily barring prosecutors from using evidence they relied on to initially bring criminal charges.
The ruling late Saturday by U.S. District Judge Colleen Coral-Cotley does not prevent the Justice Department from trying again soon to prosecute Comey, but it does indicate that prosecutors may have to do so without citing communications between Comey and close friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor.
Comey was indicted in September for lying to Congress when he denied authorizing a colleague to serve as an anonymous source for media coverage of the FBI. In pursuing the case, prosecutors cited messages between Comey and Richman that they said showed Comey encouraged Richman to contact the media for certain FBI-related stories.
The case was dismissed last month after another federal judge ruled that the prosecutor who brought the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed by the Trump administration. But the ruling leaves open the possibility that the administration could try again to bring charges against Comey, a longtime foe of President Donald Trump.
After the case was dismissed, Richman’s attorneys sought a court order barring prosecutors from continuing to access his computer files, which the Justice Department obtained through search warrants in 2019 and 2020 as part of a media leaks investigation that later ended without charges.
But Richman and his attorneys say that in preparing the criminal case against Comey, prosecutors relied on data beyond the scope of the search warrant, unlawfully seized communications they should have destroyed or returned, and conducted new, warrantless searches of documents.
Corral-Cotelli granted Richman’s request for temporary restraints Saturday night, directing the department “not to obtain covered materials after identifying, isolating, and securing them, nor to share, disseminate, or disclose covered materials to any person without first seeking and obtaining permission from this court.”
She gave the Justice Department until Monday afternoon to certify compliance with the order.
“Petitioner Richman has also demonstrated that, without an injunction, he would be irreparably harmed by the continued violation of his Fourth Amendment rights to unreasonable seizures of images of his computers and related materials as a result of the government’s continued retention of them,” she wrote.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment Sunday on the ruling and what it means for the recharge against Comey.
It’s unclear whether the Justice Department can bring new charges against Comey, even if it can rely on Richman’s communications. Comey’s lawyers say the statute of limitations for such a case – the congressional testimony at issue was given on September 30, 2020, more than five years ago – has expired.
Last week, the Justice Department tried to bring a new indictment against Letitia James of New York, another considered Trump opponent and also charged by Harrigan, but failed when a grand jury refused to approve the charges.
