The Trump administration has opened a third criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, this time accusing him of leaking classified information a decade ago, according to newly unsealed court documents reported by the Associated Press via NPR and by the BBC.
The charges were filed in Washington through a criminal information, a charging document filed directly by prosecutors that does not require a grand jury's approval. The filing contains two counts over what Comey's lawyers say is an alleged disclosure to The New York Times in October 2016, while he led the FBI. The disclosure was made public Monday, the same day a federal judge ruled the department had illegally fired Comey's daughter, Maurene.
"It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice," Comey said in a video statement, adding that he is innocent and not afraid.
A case investigated twice before
The allegation centers on a 2016 Times story about a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages possibly tied to a foreign terrorist group. Prosecutor John Durham investigated the disclosure beginning in 2017 and recommended in a classified December 2018 memo that no one be charged, Comey's lawyers said. A second inquiry by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, code-named "Tropical Vortex," closed in February 2020, also without charges.
Prosecutors now say Comey tried to correct misinformation that had appeared in the press and directed staff to speak with a Times journalist about accuracy, thereby illegally passing on classified information. The department says filing an information to pause the statute of limitations is a widely accepted practice. Comey's attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, counters that the law requires an indictment within 10 years and that an information is not enough; the defense has asked a judge to dismiss the case.
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told the BBC the motion has a very good chance of succeeding and said the case seemed like a revenge-fueled effort by Trump to find something that would stick.
A campaign of retribution
The new filing is the latest escalation in what the AP described as a Trump retribution campaign against one of his best-known critics, and it comes amid a string of politically charged moves by the department ahead of next week's midterm elections. Comey's first indictment, for allegedly lying to Congress, was dismissed after a judge found the prosecutor had been illegally appointed. A second case, still pending, accuses him of threatening Trump with an Instagram photo of seashells arranged as "86 47," a prosecution some legal experts doubt.
Trump fired Comey in 2017 amid the FBI's investigation into ties between Russia and his campaign, and has repeatedly called for him to be prosecuted. For a department that has now tried three times in little more than a year, the question is less whether it can find a charge than whether any court will let one stand.
Reporting sources: NPR Topics: Politics, “Trump administration attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey again” · BBC News, “Ex-FBI chief James Comey faces federal charges for third time”.