A stunning new court filing from the Trump Justice Department has dropped like a brick through a window — and it’s not helping their case against former FBI Director James Comey. In fact, according to legal analysts, it may reveal something far more damaging: the government is scrambling, boxed in by its own missteps, and possibly running out of legal road.
Here’s what’s happening. Prosecutors asked a federal judge to dissolve a temporary restraining order that blocks them from using certain seized materials tied to Comey’s ally and former attorney, Columbia law professor Daniel Richman. The order, issued days ago by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, froze the government’s access to Richman’s emails, computer data, and other records amid concerns they may have been used improperly.
The DOJ argues this civil fight over Richman’s property is “interfering” with an active criminal prosecution. Their position: a civil plaintiff shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of the government re-building a criminal case against Comey.
But here’s where the filing turns explosive. Critics say the claim is dripping with hypocrisy because Trump-aligned legal teams previously used civil maneuvers to try to slow or derail criminal cases when it benefited Trump. The filing is essentially yelling “you can’t do that!” in a courtroom after years of their own side doing exactly that.
Then comes another landmine: the signature page.
Despite a separate ruling throwing out the earlier Comey indictment because interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed, Halligan’s name continues to appear on key filings as if she were still properly holding the job. Legal commentators are calling this a breathtaking gamble — because if a judge already deemed her appointment illegal, every filing she signs risks being treated as contaminated from the start.
And buried deeper in the motion is the detail that really sets off alarms: statute of limitations trouble.
The first Comey indictment — accusing him of lying to Congress in 2020 — was filed right at the edge of a five-year deadline. That case got dismissed on appointment grounds. Now the DOJ wants another shot, and they’re leaning on a law called 18 U.S.C. § 3288, which sometimes allows prosecutors to reindict after dismissal even if the statute has expired.
But there’s a problem big enough to sink the ship: § 3288 is typically used to fix defects in the indictment itself (like technical or drafting errors), not to rescue an indictment voided because the prosecutor had no legal authority to bring it in the first place. That’s the core dispute now racing toward the judge’s desk. If the court agrees with Richman and Comey’s side, § 3288 won’t save the case — and the perjury charge may be dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, Richman’s lawsuit claims the government violated his Fourth Amendment rights by rummaging through years-old seized data without a fresh warrant, and without proper filters (“taint teams”) to protect attorney-client privilege. Judge Kollar-Kotelly has already suggested Richman is likely to succeed on that claim, which is why she froze DOJ access in the first place.
So now the DOJ is fighting on two collapsing fronts at once:
- They need Richman’s records to resurrect the Comey case.
- But using those records may be unconstitutional — and the judge is signaling she thinks it was.
If the restraining order becomes permanent, prosecutors could be barred not only from the files, but from anything derived from them — the legal “fruit of the poisonous tree.” That would strangle any reindictment attempt before it even breathes.
Bottom line: this filing was meant to look tough. Instead, it reads like an anxious confession that the Comey prosecution can’t move forward without evidence the court may never let them touch again.
And in Washington, when the judge starts asking whether your evidence is poisoned and your prosecutor is unlawfully seated… the clock isn’t just ticking. It’s booming.
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