The Justice Department’s efforts to revive its collapsed prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James confronted new legal hurdles over the weekend as judges scrutinized investigative tactics and restricted access to evidence prosecutors once relied on.

The most consequential blow came Saturday, when U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a temporary restraining order blocking prosecutors from accessing a trove of digital records seized years ago from Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman, Comey’s longtime confidant, occasional attorney, and the central figure in the government’s theory of the case.

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