DOJ reopens case against Comey

The Department of Justice filed a criminal information against former FBI Director James Comey on Monday. The filing seeks to extend the legal time limit for bringing a criminal indictment related to a 2016 leak of classified information. Comey’s legal team immediately challenged the move, arguing the government waited too long to file the charges.

The action marks a third criminal attempt by the Trump administration to prosecute Comey since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. Court documents unsealed on Monday reveal the details of this new effort. The department characterized the move as a standard procedural step in an ongoing investigation.

The underlying allegation dates to October 2016. At that time, The New York Times published a story about a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order. The order required Yahoo to scan emails for messages linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The article cited two government officials who spoke anonymously about the secret directive.

Federal authorities began investigating the disclosure in early 2017. Prosecutor John Durham wrote a classified memo in December 2018. In that document, he recommended that no criminal charges be brought against anyone. A second investigation opened by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia in January 2019 was closed in February 2020 without charges.

The new filing alleges that Comey acted to correct misinformation that had appeared in Reuters the day before the New York Times story ran. Prosecutors claim he directed his staff to speak to a journalist regarding accuracy concerns. They argue this action illegally transferred classified information. The criminal information was filed under seal on October 6, 2026.

Comey’s attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, stated that the government is attempting to charge his client for the third time in one year. Fitzgerald noted that the applicable statute of limitations requires an indictment within ten years of the offense. He argued that an information does not satisfy this requirement because it does not require a grand jury finding of probable cause.

Comey responded to the news in a video statement on Monday. He called the new filing an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice. He affirmed that he remains innocent and not afraid of his accusers. He expressed continued belief in an independent federal judiciary. The former director has faced two other criminal cases since returning to public view.

The first case, filed in Virginia, accused Comey of lying to Congress in 2020. A judge dismissed that case because the prosecutor was illegally appointed. A second pending indictment charges him with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo. The photo displayed seashells arranged to form the numbers 86 47. Comey’s lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the new information, a request that remains pending.