James Comey Faces New Criminal Charges Over 2016 Document Leak
Former FBI Director James Comey is facing a third criminal case brought by the Justice Department, this time over allegations that he improperly disclosed a sensitive national security document while leading the bureau in October 2016. Court records unsealed recently reveal that prosecutors filed charges against Comey in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on October 5, exactly ten years after the alleged disclosure. The publicly available documents provide few details about the document or the circumstances surrounding its alleged transmission.
The Justice Department has not yet secured a grand jury indictment and states that the October 5 filing was intended to prevent the statute of limitations from expiring while prosecutors continue pursuing the case. In a statement, the department defended its use of a criminal information, a charging document filed by prosecutors without a grand jury indictment. The Justice Department explained that filing a waiverless criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court, approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals. They emphasized that this is an ongoing criminal investigation and declined to comment further.
Comey's attorneys have challenged the filing in sealed proceedings conducted earlier this month, arguing that prosecutors were required to obtain an indictment before the ten-year deadline expired. They contend that the Justice Department cannot satisfy that requirement merely by filing a criminal information. Comey's lawyers stated in court documents that an indictment fundamentally differs from an information.
Comey's Public Critique of Justice Department
In response to the latest proceedings, Comey publicly criticized the Justice Department, accusing it of abusing its authority. He remarked, "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," in a video statement.
Final Brief
The legal dispute became public when the court unsealed the case. These new allegations add to two other criminal proceedings involving Comey. In North Carolina, he faces a separate charge stemming from a social media post that critics interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump. The controversy began in May 2025, when Comey shared a photograph of seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers "86 47." The image drew criticism because the number 86 is sometimes used as slang for removing or getting rid of something, while Trump is the 47th president of the United States. Some interpreted the combination as a veiled reference to harming or eliminating Trump.
Comey initially captioned the photograph: "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." He deleted the post later that day and subsequently explained that he believed the arrangement conveyed "a political message" but "didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence." Comey was also indicted in September 2025 on allegations that he lied to Congress about disclosures of information to the media. That prosecution was dismissed late last year after a federal judge ruled that the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who had brought the case, had been appointed improperly without Senate approval.
