Former FBI director James Comey is facing a third criminal case brought by the Trump administration, after federal prosecutors accused him of unlawfully transmitting national defence information to a reporter a decade ago, according to court documents unsealed on Monday. Comey immediately denied the allegations, describing the prosecution as political retribution, while his lawyers moved to have the case dismissed on the grounds that it falls outside the statute of limitations.
The new case, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, charges Comey with transmitting national defence information and conspiring to do so under a provision of the Espionage Act. It is the third time the Department of Justice has pursued criminal charges against the former FBI chief since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 — an extraordinary sequence in the history of American law enforcement, and one that has deepened the debate over whether the Justice Department is being used against the president's critics.
Table of Contents
- What the new charges allege
- A 2016 article at the centre of the case
- Comey's response: "I'm still innocent"
- The statute of limitations fight
- Two earlier cases, two different fates
- A family caught in the same storm
- Why this case matters beyond Comey
- Key takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sources
- Chronicle related reading
What the new charges allege
The charging document, a criminal information filed under seal on 5 October and made public on Monday 26 October, contains two counts. The first accuses Comey of knowingly and wilfully transmitting information relating to the national defence to a person not entitled to receive it. The second alleges a conspiracy to do the same, running from no later than 4 October 2016 through to the date the case was filed.
The document itself is strikingly spare. It identifies just one specific act said to have been carried out in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy: that on 5 October 2016, Comey, acting through one or more unnamed co-conspirators, directed an unidentified person to disclose national defence information to a reporter for a national news publication. The court papers do not say what information was shared, or with whom, beyond that description — a thinness that Comey's defence team has already seized on.
Notably, Comey has not been indicted by a grand jury in this matter. Prosecutors proceeded by criminal information, a route that does not require a grand jury vote but does require the defendant's consent in most circumstances — a procedural detail that sits at the heart of the defence's challenge.
A 2016 article at the centre of the case
The reporting behind the charges dates back to the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, when Comey was still FBI director under President Barack Obama. On 5 October 2016, the New York Times published an article by reporter Charlie Savage headlined "Yahoo Said to Have Aided US Email Surveillance by Adapting Spam Filter", describing how Yahoo had been ordered to scan its users' email traffic for a specific computer signature allegedly linked to a terrorist organisation.
According to a filing by Special Assistant US Attorney Dustin Farahnak, prosecutors contend that Comey sought to correct reporting that had appeared in Reuters the previous day. The filing says the investigation uncovered evidence that Comey directed staff to speak to Savage about specific accuracy concerns in the Reuters article, "and thereby illegally transferred classified information".
The defence disputes that characterisation entirely, arguing that the government had already examined the matter years ago and that correcting a press inaccuracy is a far cry from leaking secrets. The disagreement captures a recurring tension in national security law: the line between a senior official's legitimate engagement with the press and the unlawful disclosure of protected information is often drawn in retrospect, and with the benefit of political hindsight.
Comey's response: "I'm still innocent"
Comey responded within hours in a video posted on Substack, in the same defiant register he has used throughout the successive prosecutions. "Well, now they're back again. It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to," he said. "Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent, and I'm still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary."
He also warned supporters to expect more. With Trump only midway through his second term, Comey said he anticipated further charges, adding: "The next couple years are going to be hard for all of us. It's really important that we stand straight and keep the faith in America."
The language matters because Comey has framed each prosecution not as an isolated legal dispute but as a campaign. That framing is, of course, contested by the administration, which insists the cases rest on evidence and law. But the pattern — three criminal cases against the same prominent critic in under two years — is what gives the retribution argument its force in public debate, regardless of how any individual case is resolved in court.
The statute of limitations fight
Comey's lawyers have already filed a motion to dismiss, and their central argument is timing. The counts, they say, rest exclusively on a disclosure that occurred exactly ten years before prosecutors filed the criminal information — and the law, in their reading, required the government to secure a grand jury indictment within that ten-year window rather than proceeding by information.
If the court accepts that argument, the case collapses before reaching the merits. If it does not, the prosecution will still have to prove that what Comey authorised was in fact a transmission of national defence information to an unauthorised recipient, rather than a lawful correction of reporting — a factual question on which the sparse charging document offers little preview.
Legal analysts will be watching the procedural ruling closely, because it could determine whether this third case ever reaches a jury. A dismissal on limitations grounds would also carry a political sting for the administration: it would mark the second Comey prosecution to fall at an early hurdle.
Two earlier cases, two different fates
The new charges follow two earlier prosecutions, each with its own trajectory. In April 2025, Comey was charged with lying to Congress; a judge dismissed that case. The second case, brought in September 2025, remains ongoing and alleges that Comey threatened to harm Trump by sharing a social media image of seashells arranged to read "8647" — a number his critics read as a coded threat and his supporters read as a commonplace political slogan.
Taken together, the three cases trace an escalation from process offences to national security charges, and from a dismissed indictment to a criminal information filed a decade after the underlying events. Supporters of the prosecutions argue that senior officials must be held to the same secrecy laws as anyone else. Critics counter that the selectivity — a decade-old disclosure, pursued only after the target became the president's most prominent law-enforcement critic — is itself the story.
A family caught in the same storm
The new charges landed on the same day as another development in the Comey family's collision with the administration. Hours earlier, a judge ruled that the Justice Department's 2025 firing of Comey's daughter, Maurene Comey, was unlawful. Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, had brought criminal cases against Ghislaine Maxwell, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein, and against the music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, before her dismissal.
The coincidence of the two events on a single day sharpened the sense, among Comey's supporters, of a family being pursued across generations. For the administration's defenders, the two matters are legally distinct and should be judged separately. Either way, the juxtaposition ensured that Monday's court news travelled well beyond legal circles.
Why this case matters beyond Comey
The Comey prosecutions are, on one level, a personal saga: a president and the FBI director he fired in May 2017, locked in a conflict that began with the investigation into links between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia and has never really ended. Comey's firing, his subsequent public criticism of Trump, and Trump's repeated public demands that he be prosecuted form the backdrop to every filing.
But the case also tests a broader principle. The Justice Department has historically guarded its independence from the White House precisely to avoid the appearance — or the reality — of prosecutions chosen by political preference. When a former FBI director is charged three times in two years, and when the latest charges rest on a ten-year-old press interaction, that independence is put under strain whether or not any individual prosecutor acted improperly.
The courts will decide the legal questions: the limitations period, the meaning of national defence information, and whether a direction to correct reporting can constitute a crime. The public debate will run in parallel, and it will not wait for a verdict. In that sense, the third Comey case is already doing what the first two did — forcing a conversation about where legitimate prosecution ends and political retribution begins, and about how much the answer depends on who is in the White House.
Key takeaways
- Federal prosecutors have charged former FBI director James Comey for a third time, accusing him of transmitting national defence information to a reporter in October 2016.
- The case stems from a 2016 New York Times article about Yahoo's cooperation with US email surveillance; prosecutors say Comey directed staff to share information with its reporter to correct earlier reporting.
- Comey denies wrongdoing, calls the prosecution an abuse of the Justice Department, and says he expects further charges during Trump's second term.
- His lawyers seek dismissal, arguing the charges are time-barred because prosecutors filed a criminal information exactly ten years after the alleged disclosure instead of securing a grand jury indictment.
- The charges arrived the same day a judge ruled the firing of Comey's daughter, prosecutor Maurene Comey, was unlawful — and follow an earlier dismissed case and one still pending.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is James Comey charged with in the new case?
Comey faces two counts: transmitting national defence information to a person not entitled to receive it, and conspiring to do so, under a provision of the Espionage Act. Prosecutors allege that on 5 October 2016 he directed someone to disclose such information to a reporter for a national news publication.
Has Comey been indicted?
No. Prosecutors proceeded by criminal information rather than a grand jury indictment. That procedural choice is central to the defence's argument that the case is time-barred, since the alleged disclosure occurred exactly ten years before the filing.
What does Comey say about the charges?
He denies any wrongdoing and describes the prosecution as political retribution and an abuse of the Department of Justice. In a video response he said: "I'm still innocent, and I'm still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary."
What happened to the two earlier cases against Comey?
The first case, brought in April 2025 and charging Comey with lying to Congress, was dismissed by a judge. The second case, from September 2025, is still ongoing and concerns a social media post showing seashells arranged as "8647", which prosecutors say threatened Trump.
Why is the 2016 Yahoo article relevant?
The charges concern a New York Times article published on 5 October 2016 about Yahoo adapting its spam filter to assist US intelligence surveillance. Prosecutors say Comey directed staff to discuss accuracy concerns about prior Reuters reporting with the article's reporter, and that this transferred classified information.
Sources
- USA TODAY
- Democracy Docket
- Al Jazeera reporting on the unsealed court documents
