Federal prosecutors have charged former FBI Director James Comey with disseminating national defense information and conspiring to disseminate national defense information.
This is the third federal case against Comey, who has been a longtime target of President Donald Trump since he launched an FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The case has been kept secret since October 5.
Comey’s defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charges ten days ago. He has not yet been charged in the case.
Comey responded to the new allegations in a video on Monday.
“Well, they’re back at it. It would be so funny if this wasn’t such an egregious abuse of power at the Department of Justice that we can’t be insensitive to it,” Comey said in a video on Substack after the charges became public.
“I haven’t changed anything. I’m still innocent. I still have no fear of these people and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary,” he said.
The new accusation stems from an article published by New York Times reporter Charlie Savage on October 5, 2016, titled “Yahoo says it helps U.S. email surveillance by adopting spam filters.”
“A U.S. investigation has uncovered evidence that former FBI Director James B. Comey attempted to correct misinformation in the media by: Reuters “The investigation found evidence that Mr. Comey directed staff to speak with Mr. Savage regarding specific accuracy issues related to this incident,” Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak wrote in a document released Monday. Reuters articles, thereby illegally transmitting confidential information. “
Comey’s lawyers argued that the two counts were “based solely on October 5, 2016, a full decade before the government allegedly submitted the criminal information” – and that the charges should be dismissed because of statute of limitations issues.
They argued that the case was “time-barred” because the government had 10 years to prosecute “by obtaining a grand jury indictment.”
They argued that the charges filed were criminal information — essentially charges brought by prosecutors, not a grand jury indictment — and therefore should be dismissed.
Comey cannot be tried based solely on criminal information unless he drops the prosecution, which would be an unusual move. If the court allows it, prosecutors would still need to seek indictment before Comey could be arrested, arraigned, plead guilty and ultimately stand trial on the charges.
Prosecutors insist the charges are timely and that Comey’s lawyers misread the applicable law.
Comey was FBI director when the New York Times article was published. Trump fired him in May 2017 after he launched an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.
In the years since, Trump has repeatedly called for Comey’s prosecution, calling him a “dirty cop” and a “sick man.”
This is the third criminal case filed against Comey since the start of Trump’s second term.
The first case was dismissed by a judge; the other occurred on April 28, when Comey was indicted in North Carolina on charges that he posted a picture of a seashell with “8647” written on it, posing a threat to Trump. Comey maintains his innocence.
Comey’s attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement Monday that the first case was dismissed because “the Department of Justice used someone who was not actually a U.S. attorney to seek an indictment that was not actually presented to a grand jury. It charged Mr. Comey with a crime he did not commit. The case was promptly and appropriately dismissed.”
“In April 2026, the Department of Justice filed charges in the Eastern District of North Carolina against Mr. Comey for posting a photo of a seashell that spelled out ‘8647.’ In this case, we will not comment outside of the documents we filed,” he added.
The latest case, Fitzgerald said, involves an article that “was investigated by two different teams of prosecutors during the first Trump administration. Both times the administration decided that no one should be charged. Now, a decade after the article was published, the government has filed an ‘information’ against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge and was not released by a grand jury” and “intends to accuse Mr. Comey of crimes he did not commit.”
“Mr. Comey will fight these charges publicly and forcefully,” he said.
The charges were announced the same day a federal judge ruled that Comey’s daughter, Maureen Comey, was unlawfully fired from the Justice Department last year and ordered her reinstatement.
Dareh Gregorian, Raquel Coronell Uribe and Tom Winter also contributed.