Quote:A Clinton-appointed judge on Friday ordered the DOJ to return all materials it seized from Comey’s media mole a week after she blocked federal prosecutors from accessing key evidence in the criminal case against James Comey.

Comey’s secret media mole, Daniel Richman, recently sought to block the Justice Department from accessing his files as the Trump Administration prepares to hit James Comey with a new indictment.

The feds seized materials from Daniel Richman several years ago and he asked a judge to block the DOJ from accessing his files.

A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted former FBI Director James Comey in September. He was indicted on two counts – false statements and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

The charges are related to Comey’s testimony to Senate investigators in September 2020 about whether he authorized leaks to the media.

Newly released November 2016 emails reveal that James Comey was guiding his media mole, Daniel Richman, and authorized leaks to the media.

James Comey knew his ‘friend’ Daniel Richman was talking to the media, backing up claims in Lindsey Halligan’s case against the former FBI Director.

On Friday, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, appointed by Clinton, ordered the DOJ to return all data it seized from Daniel Richman.

“This Court concludes that although Petitioner Richman is entitled to the return of the improperly seized and searched materials at issue here,” the Clinton-appointed judge wrote, “he is not entitled to an order preventing the Government from ‘using or relying on’ those materials in a separate investigation or proceeding, as long as they are obtained through a valid warrant and judicial order.”

Politico reported:

A federal judge ordered the Justice Department on Friday to return data it seized and obtained in 2017 from a longtime friend of former FBI Director James Comey, concluding that prosecutors had violated law professor Daniel Richman’s constitutional rights and misused his material in their quest to indict Comey.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the material from Richman — an image of his hard drive and files from his iCloud and Columbia University email accounts — was handled with “callous disregard” for Richman’s rights. Prosecutors rummaged through the materials without a warrant as they pursued a slapdash case against Comey, the judge found, calling it a “remarkable breach of protocol.”

However, in a significant concession to prosecutors, Kollar-Kotelly ordered that a copy of all the data the government obtained be deposited with a federal court in Virginia. That provision, the judge said, would ensure that prosecutors could seek to regain access to the materials if they can persuade the court there to do so.

The Justice Department responded to Judge Kollar-Kotelly and said her ruling “has effectively enjoined the government from investigating and potentially prosecuting Comey.”

The DOJ said that Daniel Richman had “impermissibly used a civil lawsuit to constrain a criminal investigation,” Reuters reported.