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James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is facing criminal charges for the third time, with federal prosecutors alleging he leaked national defense information while serving as the nation's top law enforcement official.
The two-count filing, made in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accuses Comey of "knowingly and wittingly" transmitting national defense information and conspiring to do so. According to the New York Post, a Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the filing, calling it a "waiverless criminal information" used to toll the statute of limitations—a widely recognized legal practice in federal court.
The BBC reports that Comey's lawyers said the case stems from an alleged disclosure of classified information to the New York Times in October 2016, while Comey was serving as FBI director.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the charges were unsealed Monday (October 26) and accuse Comey of directing an individual, "through one and more co-conspirators," to disclose national defense information to a reporter for a national news publication in 2016. Court documents show the charges were filed exactly 10 years after the alleged leak—the statute of limitations on unauthorized disclosure offenses.
Comey responded to the charges Monday (October 26) in a video posted to his Substack. "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." Comey added, "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."
This marks the third time the Department of Justice has brought criminal charges against Comey since the start of President Donald Trump's second term. A previous case—charging Comey with making false statements at a 2020 Senate hearing and obstructing a congressional investigation—was dismissed by a judge who found that the prosecutor handling the case, Lindsey Halligan, had been illegally appointed.
Comey also separately faces charges tied to an Instagram post in which he shared a photo of seashells on a beach arranged to form the numbers "86 47." Prosecutors alleged the post amounted to a threat against President Trump, as "86" is sometimes used in restaurant parlance to mean getting rid of something and has also been associated with mob terminology.