By Katelyn Polantz, NCS
(NCS) — The Justice Department stated in court docket paperwork on Tuesday that it plans to proceed its efforts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey.
The division’s stance was revealed in a lawsuit introduced by the previous FBI’s director’s buddy and former lawyer Dan Richman. It comes two weeks after Comey’s earlier indictment was dismissed and after a decide put short-term limits on the proof prosecutors can use in future grand jury proceedings.
In the paperwork filed Tuesday — in a quick-transferring court docket battle over proof used to examine Comey over his statements to Congress 5 years in the past — the Justice Department refers to the state of affairs as each a “pending criminal investigation” and “a potential federal criminal prosecution.”
The DOJ wrote to a federal decide that Richman’s lawsuit shouldn’t have the opportunity to stymie a legal prosecution.
The lawsuit, the Justice Department wrote, “is actually a collateral motion aimed at hindering the government from using (Richman’s) property as evidence in a separate criminal proceeding.” The court docket that quickly locked down proof the Justice Department had from Richman “has effectively enjoined the government from investigating and potentially prosecuting Comey.”
The Richman proof
Federal investigators first gathered proof associated to Comey and Richman years in the past, getting warrants to entry Richman’s iCloud account, digital gadgets and work e mail at Columbia University, the place he’s a regulation professor. No legal prices got here from the investigation, which examined a potential nationwide safety leak.
Yet the proof resurfaced within the Comey case this yr, because the Justice Department went again to Richman’s recordsdata to strive to present a grand jury that Comey allegedly authorised Richman talking to the media in 2020 — a transfer prosecutors alleged the previous FBI director lied about when questioned by Congress.
Comey pleaded not responsible to mendacity to Congress earlier than the case in opposition to him was dismissed simply earlier than Thanksgiving by a decide who discovered the interim US lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, was serving within the position unlawfully.
NCS beforehand reported the US Attorney’s Office within the Eastern District of Virginia was intending to return to a grand jury to try to revive the indictment in opposition to Comey.
Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the DC District Court on Saturday evening quickly blocked the Justice Department from utilizing the Richman proof, doubtless disrupting prosecutors from making an attempt to cost Comey again till the proof battle is resolved.
Before Comey’s case was dismissed, nevertheless, his authorized workforce and a decide in Alexandria, Virginia, unearthed details about how the primary indictment was secured — discovering that it appeared to largely activate proof the grand jury noticed from the Richman investigation years in the past and will not have been in a position to use.
The decide who reviewed the Comey grand jury data stated a few of that proof appeared to have been accessed with out correct court docket authorization and wasn’t legally authorised to be used within the Comey investigation this yr.
Those developments gave Richman the brand new alternative to problem this Justice Department, citing his personal constitutional protections in opposition to unlawful searches and seizures, however now, the Trump administration argues federal judges shouldn’t have the opportunity to cease legal prosecutions prematurely.
Richman shouldn’t have the opportunity to completely block the Justice Department from utilizing his recordsdata till after any trial “should the government obtain a new indictment of Comey,” the prosecutors argued to Kollar-Kotelly.
The Justice Department insists Halligan remains to be the US lawyer, inflicting chaos within the US lawyer’s workplace and within the Northern Virginia federal court docket because the ruling that eliminated her.
She is among the many prosecutors who signed the most recent court docket papers within the Richman proof battle, and is listed there as “United States Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia.”
The-NCS-Wire
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