WASHINGTON —

The Justice Department violated the constitutional rights of a close friend of James Comey and must return to him computer files that prosecutors had hoped to use for a potential criminal case against the former FBI director, a federal judge said Friday.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly represents not only a stern rebuke of the conduct of Justice Department prosecutors but also imposes a dramatic hurdle to government efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey after an initial one was dismissed last month. Advertisement

The order concerns computer files and communications that investigators obtained years earlier from Daniel Richman, a Comey friend and Columbia University law professor, as part of a media leak investigation that concluded witho

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