WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors have brought new charges against former FBI director James B. Comey over a decade-old allegation that he ordered his staff to leak sensitive national security information to a reporter, according to court papers made public on Monday.Few details are provided about the chargesin the three-page filing, but Comey’s lawyers said in separate court papers that the case stemmed from an alleged disclosure of classified information to The New York Times in October 2016, while he was head of the FBI.The case highlights the extraordinary effort the Justice Department has expended in pursuing Comey, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump.It is the third time in 13 months that the Trump administration has sought to prosecute Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017.The new charges came in the form of a criminal information filed under seal in the US District Court in Washington this month, the court records show. Comey’s lawyers had in recent weeks sought to get the charges dismissed, but have yet to succeed.Comey denied any wrongdoing in a video posted on Substack on Monday, calling the charges an “appalling abuse”.“I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid of these people,” he said. The new case against him, he said, “would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to.”Comey’s legal team is fighting the case partly on the grounds that the administration already bungled it by not filing an indictment before the 10-year statute of limitations. The Justice Department, however, says the document that the two charges are outlined in is not enforceable and that they have yet to file their official charges against Comey. The move is instead an attempt to push back the 10-year deadline on bringing charges under the Espionage Act against the former FBI director, which expired earlier this month, a department official said in a statement.Comey is accused of knowingly and willfully causing national defense information to be “communicated, delivered and transmitted to a person not entitled to receive it” around Oct. 4 and 5 of 2016. Court papers in the case point to an Oct. 5 article in The New York Times describing a novel use of surveillance authority involving Yahoo emails.Lawyers for Comey said in court papers that the issue had twice been investigated, including during the first Trump administration, and had not led to charges either time.The article described how Yahoo used a system intended to scan emails for child pornography and spam to help satisfy a secret court order requiring it to search for messages containing a computer “signature” tied to the communications of a state-sponsored terrorist organization, citing several people familiar with the matter.According to the article, the Justice Department obtained an individualized order from a judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and Yahoo was barred from disclosing the matter.Prosecutors, in court papers, said that the Times article came about because Comey “sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before.” The investigation, the prosecutors said, “uncovered evidence that Comey directed staff to speak to” The Times “about specific accuracy concerns related to the Reuters article, and thereby illegally transferred classified information.”Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times, said the paper “does not comment on the sourcing behind our reporting, but we know from experience that prosecutions like this one are designed to discourage sources from providing journalists with the kind of valuable and illuminating information that the public needs to know.”Trump administration officials have faced resistance from grand jurors in the nation’s capital, who have repeatedly rejected some cases that seemed to be motivated by presidential animus.The charges add to the number of actions the Justice Department has taken on politically sensitive matters in the days before midterm elections. Typically, the department has sought to stay quiet in the two months preceding an election, to avoid the appearance of trying to influence voters.The controversy over the alleged leaks began in the early days of Trump’s first administration. After he was fired as FBI director, Comey shared with his team at least one memo describing his conversations with the president. The information was then shared with a New York Times reporter.The allegations into Comey’s conduct have been at the center of multiple investigations, including by the Justice Department’s inspector general and by Special Counsel John Durham, who was brought in to examine the origins of the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.Durham brought charges against three people associated with the probe and while he criticized some of the decisions made by Comey and other top government officials, Durham didn’t find evidence to support criminal prosecutions against them.In April 2026, Comey surrenderedto authorities to face a separate criminal charge in North Carolina, where he is accused of threatening Trump by posting last spring on social media a photo of seashells in the sand arranged to say “8647.” “Eighty-six” is a slang term for “get rid of”, and prosecutors allege it encourages violence against Trump, the 47th president.Comey denies any wrongdoing, saying he did not know what the numbers meant, and accusing the prosecution of political motivation. That case is ongoing.The latest charges against Comey were made public the same day a federal judge ruled the Justice Department illegally fired his daughter, Maurene Comey.Maurene Comey, who lost her job as a federal prosecutor in New York in July 2025, sued the government, arguing she was unlawfully fired because of her father and because of her perceived political affiliations.The judge ruled on Monday that the Trump administration must reinstate her and that she must be given back pay.
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