James Comey’s friend and former lawyer Daniel Richman is suing the Justice Department over proof gathered from him years in the past that was utilized in the not too long ago dismissed felony case towards Comey, which could disrupt the Trump administration’s imminent plans to re-indict the former FBI director.
The proof the Justice Department gathered from amassing Richman’s on-line accounts, iPhone, iPad and a tough drive in 2019 and 2020 was turning into a critical concern in felony case towards Comey in Northern Virginia that was dismissed final month.
Richman, a Columbia University regulation professor, is asking the federal courtroom based mostly in Washington, DC, to concern an emergency order for the Justice Department to cease accessing Richman’s recordsdata and maintain a listening to on whether or not the Justice Department violated Richman’s constitutional rights.
He says the Justice Department nonetheless having entry to his recordsdata is a “callous disregard” of his Fourth Amendment rights defending towards unfair searches and authorities seizures.
“There is no lawful basis for the government to retain any images of Professor Richman’s computer, whether stored on the Hard Drive or elsewhere,” his lawsuit says. “The government’s conduct has deprived Professor Richman of his constitutional rights, and the injury to Professor Richman will continue if his property is not returned.”
Richman’s new requests in courtroom now create the risk {that a} decide could additional dig into the allegations of prosecutorial missteps, which weren’t absolutely uncovered or litigated in the Comey case earlier than it was dismissed final Monday, or shut off proof prosecutors might want to use as they fight to refashion costs towards Comey associated to his 2020 congressional testimony.
DC District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an skilled jurist on nationwide safety circumstances and a Bill Clinton appointee, hasn’t but responded to Richman’s lawsuit, in accordance to the courtroom report. The Justice Department has additionally not responded. The authentic search courtroom data from years in the past, the place the Justice Department sought warrants to get hold of Richman’s electronic mail, iCloud and different accounts and different information, are additionally nonetheless underneath seal in the DC District Court.
In some ways, Richman’s lawsuit picks up the place Comey’s case left off earlier than its dismissal.
Comey’s staff had been gaining floor with arguments the Justice Department and FBI mishandled proof and its grand jury presentation earlier than handing up the indictment of the former FBI director in late September. President Donald Trump publicly stated he needed the Justice Department to prosecute Comey, and the indictment got here days earlier than the risk of federal costs expired.
Comey had pleaded not responsible earlier than the costs had been dismissed. The indictment alleged he had misled Congress in 2020 on his interactions with Richman, and the Alexandria, Virginia, grand jury heard proof from the Richman recordsdata, in accordance to courtroom data.
A federal Justice of the Peace decide in Virginia wrote final month that the Justice Department, in the use of years-old proof from Richman earlier than Comey’s grand jury this yr, had a “cavalier attitude towards a basic tenet of the Fourth Amendment” and that prosecutors finally had been ready to “rummage through all of the information seized from Mr. Richman, and apparently, in the government’s eyes, to do so again anytime they chose.”
The authentic search warrants, for a nationwide protection leak investigation known as Arctic Haze, didn’t authorize federal investigators to seize proof associated to the crimes Comey was finally charged with, of mendacity to Congress in 2020 testimony, the Justice of the Peace decide William Fitzpatrick stated.
The proof from Richman additionally sat dormant for years, and the Justice Department hadn’t obtained new warrants to entry it once more for investigating Comey this yr, Fitzpatrick additionally famous. Additionally, the Justice of the Peace decide took concern with the Justice Department not placing the proof by means of a correct course of to filter out probably confidential discussions between attorneys and their purchasers — on this case, with Comey as the consumer of Richman and others years in the past. Comey’s staff stated that they had never had access to the proof earlier than he was charged.
The Arctic Haze investigation by no means resulted in a felony case, and Richman has by no means been charged.
“Although the Arctic Haze investigation decisively concluded in 2021, the government to this day indefensibly retains Professor Richman’s Files,” Richman’s attorneys wrote in the new lawsuit of their latest DC District Court submitting. The Justice Department’s strategy to the proof, they add, “exemplifies precisely the governmental abuse against which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.”
The Comey felony case ended abruptly final with a separate decide’s ruling that Trump-backed lawyer Lindsey Halligan, who had been performing as the US legal professional in the Eastern District of Virginia and solely introduced the case to the grand jury in late September, didn’t have prosecutor powers at the moment.
The dismissal largely minimize off the risk of the protection staff’s probe into Halligan and investigators’ strategy as a result of the felony case was closed earlier than Comey’s staff obtained entry to his grand jury data and earlier than he could formally problem the use of proof in the case. The Justice Department has stated it deliberate to attraction the choice voiding Halligan’s work, although that attraction hasn’t been filed. Grand jury exercise the place the Justice Department makes an attempt to safe a brand new indictment could come first.
If the decide in DC’s federal courtroom doesn’t cease the Justice Department from touching the Richman proof once more, Richman’s staff asks for the courtroom to hear testimony and different data “to determine the precise contours of the government’s conduct, why it did it, and whether that constitutes callous disregard or intentional misconduct.”