President Donald Trump’s administration has charged former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey a third time, according to documents unsealed on Monday—the same day a US judge ruled that the administration unlawfully fired Comey’s prosecutor daughter, who worked on the sex crimes case against the president’s dead ex-friend Jeffrey Epstein.
Comey, a former Republican fired during Trump’s first term, and various critics have condemned all of the cases against him and others who publicly call out the administration as weaponization of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against the president’s political enemies. The latest case relates to a New York Times article from over a decade ago, when he was still FBI chief.
The case, in which he’s accused of unlawfully disclosing classified information, “has played out under seal since October 5. Comey’s defense attorneys filed a motion 10 days ago to dismiss the charges against him. He has not been indicted in the case,” NBC News reported. “The charges that were filed are a criminal information—essentially a charge filed by prosecutors—and not a grand jury indictment.”
Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and CNN’s senior legal analyst, was among the experts who highlighted that “this is a bizarre, and likely improper, use of a criminal ‘information’ to end-run the statute of limitations.”
“Typically an information must be agreed to by a defendant—and Comey did not consent here,” Honig explained. “It therefore likely cannot extend the statute of limitations, which would have expired on October 5, 2026.”
The DOJ Rapid Response account on X said that “the department filed a waiverless criminal information to toll the statute of limitations as it relates to allegations concerning former FBI Director Comey. Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple circuit courts of appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further.”
Comey’s attorney, Pat Fitzgerald, said that he “steadfastly maintains his innocence” and noted some details from all cases: “In September 2025, the Department of Justice used a person who was not actually a United States attorney to seek an indictment that was not actually shown to the grand jury. And it charged Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit. That case was promptly and properly dismissed. In April 2026, the Department of Justice filed charges in the Eastern District of North Carolina concerning Mr. Comey’s posting of a photograph of seashells spelling ‘8647.’ We will not comment beyond our filings in that case.”
“This most recent case involves an October 5, 2016 New York Times article that two different teams of prosecutors investigated during the first Trump administration,” Fitzgerald continued. “Both times the government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone. Now, 10 years after the article was published, the government filed an ‘information’ against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit. We are gratified that United States District Judge Trevor McFadden has ordered this matter unsealed. Mr. Comey will fight these charges vigorously and in the open.”
Comey also directly declared his innocence and vowed to fight back in a video he posted on Substack, saying that “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.”
Yet another case in DC by James Comey
The documents were unsealed shortly after US District Judge Jesse M. Furman—appointed to the Southern District of New York by former President Barack Obama—sided with Maurene Comey, concluding that the DOJ “violated the separation of powers, federal administrative law and Ms. Comey’s due process rights when it fired her in July 2025,” as the Times detailed Monday.
A spokesperson for the DOJ—which is now led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as the president’s personal lawyer—said that “the department disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course.”
Sharing news of that ruling on X, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) predicted, “This will drive ‘Ranting Man’ Trump even crazier!!”
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