Left: President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One at Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field in Norfolk, Va., Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Right: Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey laughs while addressing a gathering at Harvard University”s Institute of Politics’ JFK Jr. Forum in Cambridge, Mass., Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa).
A federal judge, wasting no time, has issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration, including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. This action comes after it was determined that James Comey’s former lawyer and friend, Daniel Richman, is “likely to succeed on the merits of his claim” regarding the government’s “unreasonable” and warrantless searches of his files, which have been retained since their seizure in 2017.
On Saturday, Senior U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, presiding in Washington, D.C., delivered a four-page order that provisionally favors Richman. This follows the collapse of the Department of Justice’s case against former FBI Director James Comey, suggesting that the government’s approach to the investigation was flawed.
As reported by Law&Crime a week earlier, Richman had petitioned Judge Kollar-Kotelly to prevent the government from continuing its indefinite search of his files. These files were initially seized in 2017 during the Arctic Haze FBI media leaks investigation, which ultimately led to no charges against him. Despite the lack of charges, Richman argued that the Trump administration improperly utilized his personal computer files in the now-dismissed case against Comey, eight years later.
The case was dismissed after it was revealed that Bondi had “unlawfully appointed” Lindsey Halligan as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. A U.S. magistrate judge, taken aback by this revelation, criticized the DOJ for displaying a “cavalier attitude towards a basic tenet of the Fourth Amendment” by conducting searches of Richman’s files without obtaining a new warrant, seemingly in an attempt to bolster the Comey case.
According to William Fitzpatrick, the Arctic Haze investigation concluded in September 2021 without any charges being filed. The files belonging to Richman remained untouched by the FBI until the summer of 2025, when the Bureau inexplicably chose to review them again. This decision was made without securing a new warrant, even though the 2025 investigation targeted a different individual—Comey.
In a highly unusual move, the magistrate ordered the government to hand over all grand jury materials to Comey’s defense, highlighting the gravity of the situation and the judicial concerns about the government’s conduct in this case.
After Richman said the files contained “a significant quantum of privileged information involving multiple clients,” but also “communication with federal judges, including in connection with student applications for law clerk positions,” family medical records, and “comprehensive financial records,” Kollar-Kotelly agreed Saturday that he “made each of the necessary showings to obtain a narrow temporary restraining order” and that he is “likely to succeed” in getting his property back.
“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,” the judge wrote, citing the Comey case for reference. “The Court further concludes that Petitioner Richman is also likely to succeed in showing that, because of those violations, he is entitled to the return of the image.”
Daniel Richman and James Comey speak on the Hillary Clinton investigation and other topics at Columbia Law School on February 5, 2020 (Columbia Law School/YouTube).
The ruling is significant because it also puts on ice the DOJ’s ability to search the files further, notable in that it sets up a potential roadblock for any efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey.
Remarkable win for Prof Dan Richman (and Comey), at least temporarily. Judge Kollar-Kotelly orders USA not to access any info seized from Richman’s devices—which Mag Judge Fitzpatrick called the centerpiece of the case vs Comey—till she permits. https://t.co/CU7JurtXac pic.twitter.com/SL7wnOosBp
— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) December 7, 2025
The DOJ had alleged that Comey lied to Sen. Ted Cruz on Sept. 30, 2020, when he denied under questioning that he had “‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning Person 1,” namely Hillary Clinton, because he “knew, he in fact had authorized Person 3” — that would be Richman — “to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning [Clinton].”
Kollar-Kotelly, finding that Richman “will be irreparably harmed by the ongoing violation of his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures arising from the Government’s continuing retention of the image of his computer and related materials,” issued the temporary restraining order as she considers the return of the plaintiff’s files on an “expedited basis.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks about an MS-13 gang leader who was arrested in an operation by the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force, during a news conference at the Manassas FBI Field Office, Thursday, March 27, 2025, in Manassas, Va. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Relatedly, the DOJ, including Bondi, was ordered to “identify, segregate, and secure the image” of Richman’s computer, his “Columbia University email accounts, and his iCloud account,” and any copies. Once that happens, the judge added, the DOJ and Bondi cannot “access the covered materials” or share them “without first seeking and obtaining leave of this Court.”
The DOJ has been additionally ordered to respond by noon on Monday to confirm it is complying and to respond to Richman’s property return request by Tuesday morning.
Read the four-page order here.
