The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a criminal information against former FBI Director James Comey over allegations that he directed the disclosure of sensitive government information to a New York Times reporter in 2016. The filing has sparked a legal dispute over whether prosecutors can pursue the case after the statute of limitations deadline.
Court records made public Monday outline two allegations related to the alleged disclosure of a sensitive national security document while Comey was serving as FBI director in October 2016. Comey’s attorneys say the allegations were investigated previously but did not result in criminal charges.
Comey criticized the latest development in a video posted to social media.
“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,” Comey said.
DOJ Says Filing Seeks to Preserve Prosecution Deadline
The Justice Department says the filing, known as a criminal information, is not an enforceable charging document in this case and that formal charges have not yet been filed. A department official said the move is intended to extend the deadline for bringing charges under the Espionage Act, which the department says expired earlier this month.
“Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals,” the DOJ official said. “This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further.”
The legal question now is whether the filing can preserve the government’s ability to prosecute Comey after the limitations period expired.
Earlier this month, Comey sought to have the case dismissed. His attorneys argued that prosecutors must obtain an indictment within the 10-year deadline and that the Justice Department’s filing does not satisfy that requirement.
A judge will ultimately determine whether the department’s approach is legally valid. The case was unsealed Monday, but the publicly available documents provide limited details about the specific allegations against Comey.
How the Alleged Leak Investigation Began
The controversy surrounding the alleged disclosures to The New York Times dates back to the early days of President Donald Trump’s first administration.
After Trump dismissed Comey as FBI director in 2017, Comey shared with his team at least one memo describing conversations he had with the president. Information from the memos was subsequently shared with a New York Times reporter.
The alleged leaks became the subject of multiple investigations, including inquiries by the Justice Department’s inspector general and Special Counsel John Durham. Durham was appointed to examine the origins of the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Durham brought charges against three people associated with the broader investigation. Although his report criticized certain decisions by Comey and other senior government officials, Durham did not find evidence supporting criminal prosecutions against them.
More details about the related investigation are available in CNN’s reporting on the subpoena involving Daniel Richman and the Comey leak investigation.
Comey Faces a Separate Criminal Case in North Carolina
The allegations concerning the 2016 disclosure are not the only criminal case involving Comey.
He also faces a separate charge in North Carolina related to a social media post from the previous spring. The post featured seashells arranged in the sand to spell out “8647,” which authorities allege constituted a threat against Trump.
A separate case involving Comey’s congressional testimony about media leaks was dismissed by a judge last year.
The latest case also raises questions about the legal requirements for filing criminal charges after a statute of limitations deadline. Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and CNN senior legal analyst, questioned whether the Justice Department’s filing could legally preserve the case.
“This is a bizarre, and likely improper, use of a criminal ‘information’ to end-run the statute of limitations,” Honig said Monday.
Honig noted that a criminal information typically requires a defendant’s agreement and said Comey had not consented to the filing. He argued that the document therefore likely could not extend the statute of limitations, which he said expired on October 5, 2026.
The dispute will now turn on the court’s assessment of the filing and the applicable legal requirements. Until a judge rules on the issue, the validity of the Justice Department’s effort to proceed with the case remains unresolved.
This article is based on the provided report. CNN’s Aleena Fayaz contributed to the original reporting.
