(CNN) — The Justice Department said in court documents on Tuesday that it plans to continue its efforts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey.
The department’s stance was revealed in a lawsuit brought by the former FBI’s director’s friend and former lawyer Dan Richman. It comes two weeks after Comey’s previous indictment was dismissed and after a judge put temporary limits on the evidence prosecutors can use in future grand jury proceedings.
In the documents filed Tuesday — in a fast-moving court battle over evidence used to investigate Comey over his statements to Congress five years ago — the Justice Department refers to the situation as both a “pending criminal investigation” and “a potential federal criminal prosecution.”
The DOJ wrote to a federal judge that Richman’s lawsuit shouldn’t be able to stymie a criminal 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 that temporarily locked down evidence the Justice Department had from Richman “has effectively enjoined the government from investigating and potentially prosecuting Comey.”
The Richman evidence
Federal investigators first gathered evidence related to Comey and Richman years ago, getting warrants to access Richman’s iCloud account, digital devices and work email at Columbia University, where he is a law professor. No criminal charges came from the investigation, which examined a possible national security leak.
Yet the evidence resurfaced in the Comey case this year, as the Justice Department went back to Richman’s files to try to show a grand jury that Comey allegedly approved Richman speaking to the media in 2020 — a move prosecutors alleged the former FBI director lied about when questioned by Congress.
Comey pleaded not guilty to lying to Congress before the case against him was dismissed just before Thanksgiving by a judge who found the interim US attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was serving in the role unlawfully.
CNN previously reported the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia was intending to go back to a grand jury to attempt to revive the indictment against Comey.
Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the DC District Court on Saturday night temporarily blocked the Justice Department from using the Richman evidence, likely disrupting prosecutors from attempting to charge Comey again until the evidence battle is resolved.
Before Comey’s case was dismissed, however, his legal team and a judge in Alexandria, Virginia, unearthed information about how the first indictment was secured — finding that it appeared to largely turn on evidence the grand jury saw from the Richman investigation years ago and may not have been able to use.
The judge who reviewed the Comey grand jury records said some of that evidence appeared to have been accessed without proper court authorization and wasn’t legally approved for use in the Comey investigation this year.
Those developments gave Richman the new opportunity to challenge this Justice Department, citing his own constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures, but now, the Trump administration argues federal judges shouldn’t be able to stop criminal prosecutions prematurely.
Richman shouldn’t be able to permanently block the Justice Department from using his files until after any trial “should the government obtain a new indictment of Comey,” the prosecutors argued to Kollar-Kotelly.
The Justice Department insists Halligan is still the US attorney, causing chaos in the US attorney’s office and in the Northern Virginia federal court since the ruling that removed her.
She is among the prosecutors who signed the latest court papers in the Richman evidence battle, and is listed there as “United States Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia.”
The-CNN-Wire
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