Judge temporarily blocks Justice Department’s use of evidence in dismissed Comey case

CNN A federal judge on Saturday temporarily locked down the Justice Department s access to particular evidence used in its criminal episode against former FBI Director James Comey just as the Trump administration prepares to seek a new indictment after the dismissal of previous charges early last week The judge s order sets up a fast-moving crisis court proceeding over this week that could exclude key pieces of evidence from any future proceeding against Comey potentially limiting what prosecutors may present to a grand jury after his previous development was dismissed for different reasons The evolution follows a court challenge from Comey s friend and former lawyer Dan Richman who went to court after learning federal investigators may have used unauthorized access to his digital communications to prosecute Comey Richman solicited for his statistics to be returned and to block the Justice Department from accessing it without proper warrants The judge temporarily agreed The Court concludes that Petitioner Richman is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that the Cabinet has violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures by retaining a complete copy of all files on his personal computer an image of the computer and searching that image without a warrant DC District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a four-page ruling The court orders the DOJ to identify segregate and secure an image of Richman s personal computer made in as well as his Columbia University email and iCloud accounts any copy of those files and any material obtained extracted or derived from the files now in the executive s possession The judge ordered the Justice Department to certify by Monday that it is complying with the court Further developments in the disputed evidence are expected this week The evidence the Justice Department collected from Richman s online accounts iPhone iPad and a hard drive was becoming a serious issue in the in recent weeks dismissed criminal scenario against Comey in Northern Virginia Richman a Columbia University law professor called the Justice Department s access to his files a callous disregard of his Fourth Amendment rights Saturday s temporary court restriction also creates the possibility for a judge to dig into the accusations of prosecutorial missteps which were not fully exposed or litigated in the Comey episode before it was dismissed last Monday or close off evidence prosecutors may want to use as they try to refashion charges against Comey related to his congressional testimony Comey had pleaded not guilty before the charges were dismissed The indictment alleged he had misled Congress in on his interactions with Richman The Alexandria Virginia grand jury heard evidence from the Richman files according to court records Virgina federal magistrate judge William Fitzpatrick wrote last month that the original search warrants in the national defense leak inquiry known as Arctic Haze didn t authorize federal investigators to seize evidence related to Comey s alleged crimes of lying to Congress in his testimony the charges for which he was ultimately indicted The evidence from Richman was also dormant for years and the Justice Department hadn t obtained new warrants to access it again for probing Comey this year Fitzpatrick also noted Comey s club revealed they had never had access to the evidence before he was charged The Arctic Haze inspection never resulted in a criminal circumstance and Richman has never been charged The Comey criminal scenario ended abruptly last week with a separate judge s ruling that Trump-backed lawyer Lindsey Halligan who had been acting as the US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and solely presented the matter to the grand jury in late September didn t have prosecutor powers at that time The Justice Department has mentioned it planned to appeal the decision voiding Halligan s work though that appeal hasn t been filed yet The-CNN-Wire Cable News Setup Inc a Warner Bros Discovery Company All rights reserved Source