(NOQ Report)—A federal judge’s order Saturday has thrown fresh hurdles in front of the Justice Department’s push to hold James Comey accountable, locking away digital evidence tied to the former FBI director’s longtime confidant. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, in a decision filed December 6, granted a temporary restraining order to Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor and ex-special FBI employee who served as Comey’s attorney and sounding board. The ruling bars prosecutors from touching Richman’s seized computer image, iCloud data, and email accounts—materials central to the dismissed indictment against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing its work.

This isn’t the first courtroom stumble in the saga. Comey’s September charges stemmed from his 2020 testimony, where he denied that FBI personnel under his watch had leaked sensitive details about the 2016 election probes to reporters. Those leaks, prosecutors argued, fueled stories painting then-candidate Donald Trump as compromised by foreign ties. But the case unraveled last month when a Virginia judge tossed it out, ruling that lead prosecutor Lindsey Halligan—a Trump appointee—lacked proper authority under federal law.

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In 2017, shortly after Trump fired Comey, investigators imaged Richman’s personal computer as part of a classified leak probe. Richman cooperated then, but now claims the government hung onto the full data dump without fresh warrants, rifling through it for the Comey case without cause.

“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,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her four-page order.

The judge’s directive is narrow but pointed: By noon Monday, the DOJ must “identify, segregate, and secure” all Richman-related files in its possession, with no access allowed absent court permission. The freeze lasts through December 12, or until full arguments wrap up—plenty of time for defense teams to argue the evidence is fruit of a poisonous tree, potentially dooming any reloaded charges.

For those tracking the long trail of 2016 election interference, Richman’s name rings bells from the shadows. Comey tapped him to anonymously feed details from his book manuscript to The New York Times in 2017, sparking headlines about classified memos. That episode, probed by then-Inspector General Michael Horowitz, cleared Comey of policy breaches but left questions about selective enforcement lingering.

Fast-forward to today, and Richman’s devices hold threads to those very leaks, plus his own chats with media during the Clinton-Trump showdown. There is also speculation that this data trove includes echoes of the Alfa Bank story—the dubious Trump-Russia server link peddled by Clinton campaign operatives like Michael Sussmann, whose 2022 acquittal on FBI lying charges still stings as a missed chance for clarity on the hoax’s architects.

The pattern feels all too familiar. Recall the Durham investigation’s frustrations: Sussmann walked free despite evidence of campaign-driven tips to the FBI, while a key FBI lawyer copped to altering emails in the Russia probe but drew mere probation. Now, with Trump back in the White House and Attorney General Pam Bondi eyeing revivals, another layer of protection snaps into place for the old guard. Kollar-Kotelly, a 2003 appointee under George W. Bush, isn’t new to high-stakes calls— she once grilled Hillary Clinton for 11 hours over Benghazi—but her timing here raises eyebrows. Is it blind constitutional rigor, or a quiet signal that the machinery still favors its own?

Prosecutors, tight-lipped as ever, face a ticking clock. Without Richman’s files, piecing together Comey’s congressional deceptions gets trickier, especially as statutes of limitations loom. Comey’s camp, meanwhile, calls the whole affair “extraordinary prosecutorial overreach,” per past filings in similar scraps. Richman himself decried the government’s handling as a “callous disregard” of basic rights in court papers.

As the briefs pile up this week, one thing stands clear: Accountability for the FBI’s turbulent chapter under Comey remains elusive. The leaks that torched Trump’s early presidency, the anonymous sourcing that amplified them—these aren’t footnotes; they’re the fuel for a fire that nearly consumed a duly elected leader. If judges keep sealing off the records, we’ll be left sifting ashes, wondering who really pulled the strings.