WASHINGTON — Key evidence about an ally of former FBI Director James Comey was temporarily ruled off limits by a judge late Saturday, complicating the Justice Department’s efforts to re-indict him.   US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that prosecutors can’t use evidence from email accounts and a computer that belonged to Daniel Richman, someone who could potentially shed light on whether Comey lied to Congress as prosecutors alleged. 

“The Court concludes that Petitioner Richman is entitled to a narrow temporary restraining order to preserve the status quo while the Court evaluates his Motion for Return of Property and awaits full briefing and argument from the parties,” Kollar-Kotelly ruled.

Richman has alleged that the feds illegally held onto his emails and other data. Kollar-Kotelly issued a temporary restraining order against the feds from using that material in response, as the court weighs whether the government illegally retained that evidence. 

“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,” she wrote. 

Richman is a law professor and a close confidant of Comey. During the first Trump administration, Comey had given private memos to Richman to leak to the press detailing his private conversations with President Trump. That leak helped spark the Mueller investigation. 

The feds obtained a copy of Richman’s computer, Columbia University email accounts and iCloud account data in 2017 after Trump fired Comey, which had prompted the former FBI director to leak the memos of his conversation with the president. 

This past September, Trump’s DOJ indicted Comey for allegedly making false statements to Congress during a Sept. 30, 2020, Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in which he denied authorizing “someone else at the F.B.I. to be an anonymous source in news reports.”

Richman’s team argued that the feds improperly relied on his computer and email data, which may have included attorney-client privilege.

Given Richman’s history of helping Comey with leaks, prosecutors had eyed him as a critical figure. 

Last month, a federal judge dismissed the indictment of Comey, contending that interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed to her position and lacked the “authority” needed to secure the indictments.

Comey pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and alleged he was targeted by Trump as a vendetta. 

In September, Trump made a fiery post on Truth Social demanding US Attorney General Pam Bondi step up scrutiny of Comey and two of his other foes. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the post was intended to be a direct message to Bondi. 

The ruling Saturday is effective through at least Dec. 12.