Justice Department seeks to revive prosecution of former FBI chief James Comey

The Department of Justice filed a legal document on Oct. 6 to extend the time limit for prosecuting James Comey, the former FBI director. The move targets a classified leak from October 2016 that Comey's legal team argues is now barred by a 10-year statute of limitations. The filing, known as a criminal information, was unsealed in federal court on Monday.

A criminal information allows prosecutors to toll the statute of limitations without a judge's approval or a grand jury vote. The Justice Department stated this is a widely recognized federal practice and part of an ongoing criminal investigation. A department spokesperson said, “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.”

Comey’s attorneys rejected the filing as invalid. Patrick Fitzgerald, Comey’s lawyer, said in a statement that the Justice Department has attempted to charge his client for a federal crime for the third time in little more than one year. Fitzgerald noted that the applicable statute explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense, not just an information.

The alleged offense involves a New York Times story published in October 2016. The article described a secret court order requiring Yahoo to scan emails for messages linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two government officials who spoke anonymously about a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order that barred Yahoo from disclosing the details publicly.

Prosecutors in the newly unsealed filing claimed Comey sought to correct misinformation that had appeared via Reuters the day before the New York Times story. They alleged he directed his staff to speak to a newspaper journalist regarding accuracy concerns, thereby illegally transferring classified information. The criminal information was filed under seal exactly 10 years after the original article was published.

Comey responded to the news in a video statement released Monday. “Well, they're back, again,” he said. “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. Nothing's changed with me; I'm still innocent, I'm still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in an independent federal judiciary.”

This is the third criminal case involving Comey since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. The first case, filed in Virginia, accused him of lying to Congress in 2020. A judge dismissed that case, concluding the prosecutor was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges Comey with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells arranged in the numerical pattern “86 47.”

The legal battle has also reached Comey’s family. Maurene Comey, his daughter, was fired from her position as a Justice Department prosecutor in New York last year. A federal judge ruled on Monday that her termination was illegal. The new prosecution effort coincides with a series of politically charged investigative actions by the department in the weeks before next week’s midterm elections.

Comey served as FBI director when Trump took office in 2017. He was appointed by President Barack Obama and had previously served as a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush. Trump fired Comey in May 2017 during the FBI’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. The relationship has remained strained since, with Comey calling Trump “untethered to truth” in his 2018 memoir.

Comey’s lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the new information. That request remains pending as the administration pushes to keep the 2016 leak case alive. The dispute centers on whether the October 2016 filing meets the legal requirements for a valid prosecution after a decade has passed.