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A federal judge has ordered prosecutors to return evidence seized from a key figure in the dismissed criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, while allowing the Justice Department to seek a new warrant for the material.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in Washington that files taken from Daniel Richman — a law professor and former attorney for Comey — must be returned. However, the court may retain a copy of the materials for safekeeping should prosecutors pursue a new warrant, Reuters reported over the weekend.
The decision represents a temporary setback for the Justice Department as it considers whether to renew efforts to bring charges against Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump in May 2017, during his first term.
Richman filed suit last month seeking to block prosecutors from using materials he said were improperly seized during an investigation conducted in 2019 and 2020. Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling allows the government to preserve access to the records under court supervision while complying with the order to return them.
The investigation concluded in 2021 without charges. In her ruling, released Friday night, Kollar-Kotelly said it was unreasonable for the government to retain copies of Richman’s files without safeguards preventing them from being searched in a future investigation absent a valid warrant.
At the same time, the judge declined to bar the Justice Department from using or relying on the information in the future. She said prosecutors are permitted to pursue investigative leads derived from their prior review of the materials and may seek a new warrant to obtain them again.
Prosecutors relied on the seized files earlier this year as part of their case against Comey. The former FBI director was indicted in October on charges of making false statements and obstructing Congress, stemming from his 2020 testimony regarding FBI officials’ anonymous disclosures of information to news outlets.
Last month, a federal judge dismissed the criminal cases against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after determining that both indictments were obtained by an unlawfully appointed U.S. attorney in Virginia’s Eastern District.
Since then, two more grand juries have refused to re-indict James, which is highly unusual.
FBI Director Kash Patel said two weeks ago that he does not consider the prosecution of Comey to be over following the court’s dismissal of the perjury charge against him for allegely lying to Congress.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Patel told senior editor Jan Jekielek that the Trump administration had “numerous options to proceed” against Comey.
“The judicial process can make whatever determination it wants, but we at the FBI and our partners at the DOJ have numerous options to proceed, and we’re executing on all those options,” Patel said.
When pressed for more details, Patel noted, “I would say stay tuned for right after Thanksgiving and you’ll see multiple responses, in my opinion.”
Patel dropped even more bombshells about the infamous “burn bags.”
“You’re going to see everything we found in that room, in one way or another, be it through investigation, public trial, or disclosure to the Congress,” Patel said.
“It is the single largest weaponization, politicization of law enforcement against America, and specifically targeting a political party, because the institutional elite in Washington, D.C., didn’t like them and didn’t want them to win,” he added.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie determined that Lindsey Halligan had been improperly appointed interim U.S. attorney just two days before filing Comey’s case. Currie’s ruling disqualifying her makes her actions — including signing Comey’s indictment — legally invalid, reports said.
“I conclude that all actions flowing from Ms Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr Comey’s indictment, constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside,” Currie wrote in his ruling.
However, he dismissed Comey’s case and a separate one against James, who has been charged with mortgage fraud, without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled.
