Trump’s Comey case dealt new setback

Protesters outside hearing to charge former FBI Director James Comey

Protesters outside hearing to charge Comey

(Image credit: Mehmet Eser / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday that prosecutors seeking to reindict former FBI Director James Comey cannot use key evidence, striking a blow to President Donald Trump’s effort to prosecute his perceived enemies. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly temporarily barred the Justice Department from accessing or utilizing information seized from the computer of Comey’s friend Dan Richman in 2017.

Who said what

Kollar-Kotelly said Richman was likely to succeed in proving that the Justice Department should have deleted his files after it closed the earlier Comey case in 2021 and had accessed prohibited data without a warrant. Her ruling “does not preclude the department from trying again soon to indict Comey,” The Associated Press said, but prosecutors would have to do so without “using evidence they had relied on” when Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s handpicked prosecutor in Virginia, “initially secured criminal charges” in September.

A different federal judge threw out the cases against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James last month, ruling that Halligan had been unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department said it would push on, but Comey’s lawyers argued “he cannot be recharged now because the five-year deadline to bring a case against him expired” in September, The Washington Post said, and the judge “appeared to endorse that view.” The administration’s attempt to secure a new indictment against James, another perceived Trump adversary, was thwarted last week when a grand jury refused to sign off on charges.

What next?

Kollar-Kotelly put the dispute over Richman’s data “on a fast track,” Politico said, ordering the Justice Department to confirm by today that it had “complied with her order and to respond to Richman’s legal arguments” by tomorrow.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.