In this episode I take you through the most recent happenings and filings in the civil suit Daniel Richman brought against DOJ (Richman v. United States).
The episode is long but not at all short on interesting developments and disclosures.
The Richman case, which at first presented as a fairly straightforward return of seized property case, has turned out to be far more peculiar. The extent of what most people know about it is the surface-level take of “Grrr, bad judge protects Comey by stopping Trump DOJ from getting Richman’s communications.” Or something along those lines.
It’s more significant and layered than that.
DOJ has been ordered to return Richman’s property, the materials seized in 2017, 2019, and 2020 as part of the Comey Memo and Arctic Haze investigations, back to him. Yes.
However, they have ALSO been ordered to create a single forensic copy of those materials and file it under seal in the District Court of EDVA. This ensures that the materials can be accessed, searched, developed, or whatever DOJ wants to do with them AS LONG AS they get a judicial search warrant to do so.
It’s an equitable solution to the situation.
But there’s more.
Turns out, there are several copies of these materials, more than DOJ originally was aware of. And they are not segregated nor filtered for privilege. And they may contain classified information.
This has major implications for the case against James Comey (if that can be revived on appeal) but also for any future re-indictment of him (which can’t happen without materials from Richman, if it can happen at all).
If DOJ wants to bring the same case back from the dead or bring another case charging Comey with the same offenses and based on information from these materials, they need LAWFUL access to them.
And they need to do so within the next few months. Or they are SOL—and out of time.
Chapters
00:00 Start
00:45 Introduction to Episode
10:25 Richman v. United States—Reviewing Judge’s Dec 12 Order, DOJ and Richman Motions, and Dec 19 Order
01:25:20 Richman v. United States—Response from Richman Reveals Existence of More Materials
02:12:50 Richman v. United States—DOJ Must Get Search Warrant for Richman Materials
02:26:48 Richman v. United States—DOJ (Partially) Complies w/ Order and Files Richman Materials Under Seal in EDVA
02:45:33 Closing Thoughts
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