The Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey, accusing him of transmitting national defense information and conspiring to do so in connection with an alleged 2016 disclosure to a major newspaper. Prosecutors filed the case on October 5 using a criminal information rather than seeking a grand jury indictment, court documents unsealed Monday show.
The case stems from an October 5, 2016, article regarding Yahoo’s assistance with United States email surveillance. According to court filings, investigators allege that Comey directed staff to speak with a reporter to correct inaccuracies that had appeared in a article published the previous day.
Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak wrote in the unsealed filing that the government’s investigation uncovered evidence that Comey sought to correct press misinformation by directing personnel to address specific accuracy concerns with the journalist, thereby allegedly transferring classified information.
Comey was serving as FBI director at the time of the 2016 article’s publication. President Donald Trump subsequently dismissed him from his post in May 2017.
In response to the filing, Comey released a video statement Monday on his Substack platform denouncing the prosecution. Maintaining his innocence, Comey stated that the action represented an abuse of the Department of Justice and expressed continued confidence in the independent federal judiciary.
Comey’s defense attorneys have moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that the case is barred by the 10-year statute of limitations. According to the defense, the charges rely exclusively on the alleged disclosure dated October 5, 2016, exactly ten years before the government filed the criminal information.
The latest filing follows prior legal challenges involving the former FBI director. A previous case alleging that Comey made false statements to Congress and obstructed a congressional investigation has already been dismissed. He has also faced separate charges related to a social media photo showing seashells arranged to spell out a numerical sequence.
Comey has denied wrongdoing across all of the matters brought against him.
