Comey Justice Department FBI.

The Justice Department has challenged a court order that complicated efforts to seek a new indictment against former FBI Director James Comey by making a trove of evidence off-limits to prosecutors. An order issued over the weekend by a federal judge in Washington barred the Justice Department at least temporarily from accessing computer files belonging to Daniel Richman, a close Comey friend and Columbia University law professor who prosecutors see as a central player in any potential case against the former FBI director. Prosecutors moved Tuesday to quash that order, calling Richman’s request for the return of his files a “strategic tool to obstruct the investigation and potential prosecution.”