Comey friend seeks to block DOJ from accessing materials seized from him more than 5 years ago
Washington (CBS NEWS) – According to CBS, a friend and former lawyer for ex-FBI Director James Comey is taking legal action against the Justice Department over material that investigators seized from him more than five years ago and is asking a federal court to block the government from using the files in any way.
The bid from Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University, comes as federal prosecutors weigh whether to seek a new indictment against Comey, related to testimony he gave to Congress in the fall of 2020. The criminal case against the ex-FBI chief that was brought in late September was dismissed last week when a judge found Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor who secured the indictment, was unlawfully appointed interim U.S. attorney.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House said that decision would be appealed, but prosecutors have yet to formally notify the court that they will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to review the ruling. The Justice Department could also try to bring new charges against Comey, but that may come with its own risks.
The material at issue was seized by the FBI in 2019 and 2020 and includes information from Richman’s hard drive, two email accounts and an Apple iCloud account. Investigators obtained search warrants for the device and accounts as part of a probe called “Arctic Haze,” which examined a potential leak of sensitive information and was closed in 2021 without any charges being filed.
But a magistrate judge overseeing one aspect of Comey’s criminal case revealed new details about the warrants for Richman’s devices and the Justice Department’s handling of his files as it investigated the former FBI director.
The judge, William Fitzpatrick, found that the government likely seized material outside the scope of the original warrants, held onto that information for years after the Arctic Haze investigation was closed, and then conducted a new search of Richman’s files in September.
Fitzpatrick wrote in a decision that the government was left “unchecked to rummage through all of the information seized” from Richman as part of its investigation into Comey and believed it could do so “again anytime they choose.” The judge suggested that federal investigators should have obtained a new warrant for the search of Richman’s material in September, but noted that the parameters likely would have been narrower in scope than the original warrants for his device and accounts.
Fitzpatrick also wrote that the materials seized from Richman were the “cornerstone” of Halligan’s presentation to the grand jury, which went on to indict Comey on two criminal counts.
Pointing to the judge’s findings, lawyers for Richman argued his Fourth Amendment rights were violated, and he asked the U.S. district court in Washington, D.C., to order the immediate return of the files and block the government from using the “improperly seized or retained materials” any further.
Richman’s civil suit was first reported by Anna Bower of Lawfare.
“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,” they wrote.
Richman’s legal team argued that the files taken by investigators in connection with the 2019 and 2020 warrants, as well as the search earlier this year, were illegally seized, so the government cannot hold onto them.
“The government’s over-seizure and retention of Professor Richman’s Files and the 2025 warrantless search constitute, at a minimum, ‘callous disregard for [his] rights,'” they wrote.
Richman’s lawyers said investigators’ decision to search his files in connection with their investigation into Comey, when they had been retained by the government for four years, “exemplifies precisely the governmental abuse against which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.”
They asked the court to issue a temporary order that would prevent the government from using or relying on “in any way” his seized material while it considers whether his constitutional rights were violated.
