BREAKING: Judge blocks DOJ access to evidence linked to James Comey’s ally

December 7, 2025

From Politico: A federal judge dealt a setback Saturday to the Justice Department’s effort to re-indict former FBI Director James Comey, blocking prosecutors’ access to key evidence from email accounts and a computer belonging to close Comey friend and attorney Daniel Richman.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted a temporary restraining order sought by Richman’s lawyers, requiring that the evidence be sequestered pending a ruling on Richman’s claim that the government illegally retained his emails and other data.

“The Court concludes that Petitioner Richman is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that the Government 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,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a four-page order filed Saturday, one day after Richman’s attorneys requested the emergency order.

Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee based in Washington, issued the restraining order before getting a formal response from prosecutors to a petition Richman filed last week seeking return of his data. However, she said a lack of clear indication about who currently has the data and where it is stored supported her conclusion that a temporary order limiting access to the trove of records was warranted.

Daniel Richman, a Columbia law professor and a “good friend” of Comey’s, is the very same person who Comey asked to leak private memos to the media, which included details of his conversations with President Donald Trump, after Trump fired him on May 9, 2017. One week later, Comey gave the memos to Richman and asked him to leak them to the media.

The Justice Department had obtained a copy of Richman’s personal computer, iCloud account and Columbia University email accounts in 2019 and 2020.

CBS News explains that “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.”

Last week, Richman filed a lawsuit, asking the judge to block the government from using the files in any way.

ABOUT THIS JUDGE: Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, 82, was appointed by president Bill Clinton in 1997.

Remarkable win for Prof Dan Richman (and Comey), at least temporarily. Judge Kollar-Kotelly orders USA not to access any info seized from Richman’s devices—which Mag Judge Fitzpatrick called the centerpiece of the case vs Comey—till she permits. https://t.co/CU7JurtXac pic.twitter.com/SL7wnOosBp

— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) December 7, 2025