Trump administration charges former FBI Director James Comey for the third time

The new allegation concerns an October 2016 disclosure to The New York Times. The story reported on a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order requiring Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The Justice Department is attempting to connect Comey to that disclosure, which officials treated as classified.

This is called the third attempt because Comey has faced two other criminal cases since the Republican president returned to office. The first case was dismissed after a judge found that the prosecutor who brought it was illegally appointed. A separate April case involved a social media post showing seashells that officials said threatened Trump.

Comey denies wrongdoing. His attorney says the latest filing charges crimes Comey did not commit and is barred by the statute of limitations. The Justice Department calls the matter an ongoing criminal investigation and says it will not comment further.

A criminal information is a document prosecutors file in court to formally accuse someone of a crime. Unlike an indictment, it is not issued by a grand jury. The article notes that criminal informations are typically filed with a defendant’s consent as part of a plea deal, although the Justice Department says courts have also approved them to toll, or pause, legal deadlines.

An indictment results when a grand jury finds enough basis to charge someone. The filing at issue here was not approved by a judge and was not issued by a grand jury, according to Comey’s attorney. That distinction is central to the dispute over whether the document can support this prosecution.

The Justice Department says filing the information is a recognized federal-court practice. Comey’s lawyers reject that position and intend to argue that the filing is invalid. A judge will ultimately determine whether the case can proceed under the method used.

Federal authorities began investigating the alleged disclosure on October 5, 2016, when information about the secret Yahoo order reached The New York Times. The article describes the case as involving a decade-old leak because the new court documents appeared in October 2026. That long gap is the most striking feature of the prosecution attempt.

A statute of limitations sets a deadline for bringing criminal charges. The article indicates that the Justice Department’s filing was designed to toll, or extend, the 10-year limitations period. Comey’s lawyers argue that the deadline had already passed and that the government cannot revive the matter through this filing.

The legal effect remains contested. The department says federal appeals courts have approved criminal informations for tolling limitations periods. Comey’s team says the filing is invalid and cannot charge him now. The court must decide whether the deadline was properly extended.

The first investigation began in early 2017, after the FBI’s October 5, 2016, disclosure to The New York Times. Federal authorities, including then-Special Counsel John Durham, examined the matter. Durham later wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending that no one be criminally charged over the disclosure.

A second investigation opened in January 2019. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia gave it the code name “Tropical Vortex.” That inquiry addressed the same matter and ended in February 2020 without charges. The article does not identify a separate public reason beyond the government’s decisions not to prosecute.

Comey’s lawyers emphasize both outcomes in challenging the new filing. They say the government twice determined that charges should not be brought, then returned nearly ten years later with an information against Comey. The Justice Department now calls the case an ongoing criminal investigation and declines further comment.

The timing matters because the alleged disclosure happened in October 2016, while the new filing came nearly ten years later. The Justice Department says it filed a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations. In plain terms, it claims the filing preserves the government’s ability to prosecute even as the ordinary deadline approaches or has been reached.

The department describes this as a widely recognized federal-court practice. Its spokesperson says multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals have approved filing a criminal information for this purpose. The filing therefore serves a procedural role before the government comments further on the investigation.

Comey’s lawyers dispute that strategy. They say the document was not approved by a judge or issued by a grand jury, and that the government waited too long. The court will have to determine whether this type of filing was valid and whether it effectively preserved the prosecution deadline.

A judge’s ruling against the filing could stop this prosecution from moving forward. If the court finds that the criminal information was invalid, it could reject the document as an improper way to charge Comey or preserve the case. If the statute of limitations had already expired, the government could be barred from bringing the same charges.

That issue is especially important here because the alleged disclosure occurred on October 5, 2016, and the filing came nearly ten years later. Comey’s attorney says the information was not approved by a judge or issued by a grand jury. He also says the document purports to charge crimes Comey did not commit.

The Justice Department takes the opposite position. It says federal courts have approved criminal informations to toll limitations periods. The immediate next step is a legal challenge before the court. The article does not state what ruling the judge will issue or whether another charging method remains available.

The case shows why courts must remain independent when prosecutors accuse a former senior official. Comey says he is innocent and believes in an independent federal judiciary. That independence allows a judge to examine whether the Justice Department followed lawful procedures instead of treating its filing as automatically valid.

Limits on prosecutorial power include charging rules and statutes of limitations. Here, Comey’s lawyers argue that the government waited too long and used an information that was not approved by a judge or issued by a grand jury. The department responds that the filing is a recognized way to toll the deadline. A court must weigh those competing claims.

These safeguards matter because the article describes Comey as a longtime critic and foe of Trump, while the department has pursued politically charged investigations before midterm elections. Applying the same legal rules to powerful officials helps ensure that prosecution depends on law and evidence, not political conflict.