The judge ruled that federal prosecutors had handled material seized from law professor Daniel Richman with "callous disregard" for his constitutional rights.

The judge ruled that federal prosecutors had handled material seized from law professor Daniel Richman with “callous disregard” for his constitutional rights.

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to return data it seized in 2017 from a close friend of former FBI Director James Comey’s, concluding that the agency violated the constitutional rights of law professor Daniel Richman and had improperly used the material to indict Comey.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly heavily criticized Justice Department prosecutors, ruling that the data and material, an image of Richman’s hard drive along with emails from his iCloud and Columbia University email accounts, was handled with “callous disregard” for Richman’s rights.

The order is another blow to the Justice Department and prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia, after U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled last month that former Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan was not lawfully appointed as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia when she single-handedly presented the Comey case to a grand jury.

    • mkwt@lemmy.world
      14·
      11 hours ago

      It’s usually the case that federal judges did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

      In this case the actual order says to turn over all copies. It also says to deposit one copy at the federal court, which the feds can access if they apply for and obtain a lawful search warrant.

      If the feds are found to be holding onto copies later, they can get in a bunch of trouble. More importantly, they can no longer publish these emails as exhibits in a hypothetical future prosecution, like they did with Comey. Because as soon as they do, it’s all “hey where did you get those from?”

  • Toto@lemmy.world
    23·
    6 hours ago

    This case is pure vindictive behaviour BUT I will never forgive Comey for kick starting this whole trump era with his announcement of an investigation into email. Hillary is no saint but the Supreme Court is generationally positioned as a result

    Edit: meant to say generally poisoned but will leave the original as it works too.