Comey legal team challenges third DOJ prosecution attempt in D.C.
Attorneys argue the government missed a 10-year deadline to indict the former FBI director for allegedly leaking classified details to a New York Times reporter in 2016.
By Rosa Fuentes ·
Lawyers for former FBI Director James B. Comey are scheduled to appear before a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday to argue for the dismissal of new criminal charges. Their legal team is making an emergency bid to have the case thrown out before it moves further along in the judicial process.
The defense is asking D.C. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, to rule that the Justice Department failed to secure a grand jury indictment within the required time frame. They contend that the government missed a 10-year statute of limitations regarding the specific conduct alleged in the current filing.
This marks the third known attempt by federal prosecutors to bring criminal charges against Comey in a 13-month period. These legal actions followed a public demand from President Donald Trump that the Justice Department act immediately to prosecute Comey and other perceived political opponents.
The details of this latest legal battle became public on Monday. McFadden ordered the unsealing of the filings at the request of Comey’s attorneys. The documents outline the specific allegations that have triggered this round of litigation.
Prosecutors allege that Comey violated the law by directing FBI staff to share classified information with a reporter for The New York Times. The information was intended for an article published on Oct. 5, 2016. The piece, titled "Yahoo Said to Have Aided U.S. Email Surveillance by Adapting Spam Filter," examined how the company handled data requests from intelligence agencies.
According to court records, Comey sought to correct misinformation that had appeared in a Reuters story the day before the New York Times article. Prosecutors wrote that he directed staff to speak to the reporter about accuracy concerns related to the Reuters piece. They assert this action illegally transferred classified information.
The original Reuters report claimed that Yahoo secretly built a custom software program to search customer emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials. The New York Times story centered on whether the Justice Department had sought a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to force Yahoo to search for communications between members of a foreign terrorist organization.
The Justice Department filed these allegations using a criminal information rather than a grand jury indictment. This legal instrument does not require grand jury approval. The filing was placed under seal on Oct. 5. The use of this specific charging document is central to the defense argument regarding the statute of limitations.
Comey is currently facing separate charges in North Carolina. He was indicted on April 28 over an Instagram post from last year that prosecutors described as a threat against the president. The post showed the numbers 86 47 written in seashells on a beach, which Comey captioned "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." He removed the post shortly after publishing it, explaining that he took it down because some people associate those numbers with violence. His next court appearance in that case is set for January.
In September 2025, Comey was previously indicted on charges of making a false statement and obstruction related to his 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. That case was dismissed on the grounds that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who brought it was improperly appointed.
