The Justice Department has until Monday to confirm it has secured and sequestered contents of a personal computer belonging  to a former adviser to James Comey after a judge on Saturday issued a restraining order on the department’s use of the materials. 

The 2017 documents and emails obtained from a former unpaid adviser to the then-FBI director, Daniel Richman, were seized in 2019 and 2020 as part of an investigation into whether Mr. Comey lied under oath to the Senate when he said he did not ask an intermediary to speak to the press on his behalf over Russian interference in the 2016 election.  

Mr. Richman, a Columbia university law professor and longtime friend of Mr. Comey, sued to have the documents declared invalid, saying his Fourth Amendment rights were violated since the case ended in 2021 and the warrant to use them was outdated when the Trump administration reopened the investigation this year. 

A district judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, ruled Saturday that Mr. Richman would likely 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” and searched it without a fresh warrant. 

“Given that the custody and control of this material is the central issue in this matter, uncertainty about its whereabouts weighs in favor of acting promptly to preserve the status quo,” the judge wrote, ordering the Justice Department to inform the court who has custody of the computer and its contents. 

The decision is another blow to the Justice Department, which vows to appeal the ruling that Ms. Halligan was unlawfully appointed as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and re-prosecute Mr. Comey. That may be difficult to do since the statute of limitations to bring charges against Mr. Comey for lying in his September 30, 2020, testimony to the Judiciary Committee has expired.