In a fresh twist to a case the Trump-era Justice Department once tried to launch into political orbit, a longtime confidant of James Comey has stepped into court seeking to shut down the government’s access to a cache of digital material that could power a revived indictment.
Daniel Richman — law professor, former adviser to Comey, and an inadvertent recurring character in the government’s long-running pursuit of the ex-FBI director — has asked a federal judge in Washington to block prosecutors from using evidence pulled from his devices years ago. His argument is straightforward: the FBI scooped up the data without proper constitutional footing, and the government has no business rummaging through it now.
The timing is not subtle. Officials are weighing whether to resurrect a collapsed case against Comey after a judge threw it out, citing the unlawful appointment of the prosecutor who initiated the charges. Reviving the prosecution without Richman’s digital material would be akin to attempting to relight a fire with damp matches.
Richman’s lawsuit sketches out a broader picture of prosecutorial overreach: electronic devices seized in 2019 and 2020 as part of an unrelated probe, no charges ever filed, and yet the material quietly pulled back off the shelf this year and put under the microscope again — without a fresh warrant. A magistrate judge has already flagged serious mishandling in that earlier seizure, turning Richman’s newly filed challenge into a looming obstacle for anyone hoping to reopen the Comey matter.
Prosecutors had used the disputed material to accuse the former FBI director of lying to Congress about whether he had ever authorized subordinates to serve as anonymous sources in stories touching the 2016 election. The earlier indictment leaned heavily on interactions between Richman and reporters about an inquiry involving Hillary Clinton — communications prosecutors tied to Comey’s alleged misstatements.
Now, with the prior charges dismissed and the Justice Department contemplating a second attempt, Richman’s move lands squarely in their path. His lawsuit seeks nothing less than a judicial mandate to return or destroy the seized files and to ban any further use of them.
If the government wants another run at Comey, it may first have to win a battle over the digital trail it followed to get there.
