Former FBI director James Comey is facing a third set of criminal charges brought under the administration of President Donald Trump. Sealed documents that surfaced on Monday show the government accusing him of two counts linked to the unlawful sharing of information related to national defence. Comey has not been indicted in this case, and he has denied any wrongdoing.
It is the third time since Trump returned to office in January 2025 that the administration has sought criminal charges against Comey, one of the president’s most prominent critics.
Allegations tied to a 2016 New York Times article
In an October court filing, prosecutors said Comey had instructed his FBI colleagues to pass information to the news media. The filing says that Comey, acting through one or more co-conspirators, directed an individual identified only as Individual #1 to disclose national defence information to a reporter working for a national news publication.
The charges center on a New York Times article published on October 5, 2016. That story described how the email platform Yahoo had been ordered to scan traffic on its service for a specific computer signature that was allegedly linked to a terrorist organisation. Prosecutors say Comey steered sensitive information to the reporter on that story, Charlie Savage.
Comey’s defence lawyer, Pat Fitzgerald, dismissed the charges as weak in a statement released to news media. Fitzgerald said the government had already examined the same matter twice and, on both occasions, concluded that no one should be charged.
Challenge over the use of a criminal information
Fitzgerald pointed out that prosecutors did not seek an indictment, a process that requires presenting charges to a grand jury, which then decides whether to approve them. Instead, the government is pursuing what is known as a criminal information, a procedure that allows prosecutors to bypass a grand jury entirely.
Fitzgerald said that the document had been neither approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. He argued that it wrongly accuses Comey of crimes he did not commit, and he said the filing came a decade after the article was published.
The case is being overseen by Federal Judge Trevor McFadden of the US District Court in Washington, DC. McFadden was appointed to the bench by Trump. Comey’s legal team has asked for the latest set of charges to be thrown out.
Comey’s video response and warning of more charges
In a video posted on the online platform Substack, Comey again condemned the administration’s efforts to prosecute him, which he described as a campaign of political retribution. He said it would almost be funny if it were not such an appalling misuse of the Department of Justice, one that people cannot become numb to.
Comey insisted that nothing had changed in his position. He said he remained innocent, was not afraid of the people pursuing him, and still believed in an independent federal judiciary.
He also noted that Trump is only halfway through his second term, and he suggested that he expects further criminal charges. The coming years, he said, would be hard for everyone, and it was important to stand firm and keep faith in America.
Earlier prosecutions and Trump’s push against Comey
Trump has long wanted Comey prosecuted. He fired Comey as FBI director in 2017, during his first term, after Comey had led the bureau since 2013. The dismissal came while the FBI was investigating possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, a probe that Trump has repeatedly called a hoax.
After Trump’s second inauguration in 2025, his administration has sought to prosecute several of his critics, Comey among them. In September 2025, Trump appeared to ask then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Comey and other figures he views as political opponents. In a social media post addressed to Bondi, he named Comey, Democratic senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James, saying they were all guilty and that nothing was being done. He urged Bondi not to delay any longer.
Five days later, on September 25, Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress and obstructing a legislative proceeding. That case was ultimately dismissed because the prosecutor who brought it, Lindsey Halligan, had been appointed unlawfully.
A second indictment followed on April 28. In that case, the Trump administration accused Comey of threatening the president by posting a photograph on social media of seashells arranged to read “86 47”. Forty-seven refers to Trump as the 47th president, while “86” is a term common in the service industry meaning to remove an item or a customer. The administration, however, has argued that the phrase implies violence. That case is ongoing.
Earlier on Monday, a federal judge in a separate case ruled that Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, a former assistant US attorney, had been unlawfully fired last year during Trump’s second term. She has maintained that her termination was retaliation against her father. The court determined that she was entitled to retroactive reinstatement and backpay.
James Comey has denied all accusations of criminal wrongdoing, and his legal team is seeking to have the latest charges dismissed.
