Donald Trump's [Miles] Starr Chamber - emptywheel

"When the government first asked, on October 13, to use a filter review to access content seized from Dan Richman five years ago, it described that Jim Comey, "prefers to challenge the underlying search warrant first before any review takes place." But in his response yesterday, Comey didn't do that. Rather, after a heavily-redacted discussion of the problems with DOJ's past and prospective access to the content, he proposed that Judge Michael Nachmanoff should deny the government's filter request without prejudice, allowing DOJ to reconsider its bid for a filter protocol after they've first answered a set of questions."

"For the foregoing reasons, the Court should deny the government's motion to implement its proposed filter protocol without prejudice, and direct the government to disclose the following information to allow both the Court and the defense to assess the appropriateness of the protocol: 1. The legal authority for the contemplated review. 2. Whether any quarantined materials have been accessed by, shared with, or provided to the case team (and, if so, which materials were reviewed by which personnel on which day), and whether any such materials have been produced in discovery. 3. The protocol used during the prior filter review, including search parameters, segregation measures, privilege determinations, and associated logs or correspondence. 4. Whether the government intends to search raw returns or only the set already filtered in the prior review. See In re Search Warrant Issued June 13, 2019, 942 F.3d 159, 181 (4th Cir. 2019), as amended (Oct. 31, 2019) (holding that "the magistrate judge erred" by approving a filter protocol "without first ascertaining" the materials to be reviewed)."

The government requested on October 13 to use a filter review to access content seized from Dan Richman five years earlier and noted that Jim Comey preferred to challenge the underlying search warrant first. Comey's response did not challenge the warrant; instead, after a redacted discussion of DOJ's past and prospective access issues, he proposed that Judge Michael Nachmanoff deny the government's filter request without prejudice. The Court is asked to require the government to disclose the legal authority for the review, any access to quarantined materials, the prior filter protocol and logs, whether raw returns will be searched, and who will conduct the review.

Read at emptywheel