Comey lawyers challenge new criminal charges

A decade-old news media leak is now the subject of a third criminal case against former FBI director James Comey. His legal team will ask a federal judge to block the prosecution on Friday. The case stems from a 2016 New York Times article about a secret court order requiring Yahoo to scan emails for messages linked to a foreign terrorist organization.

The justice department filed a criminal information this month, bypassing a grand jury. Officials cited the need to extend the legal time limit for seeking an indictment. Comey’s attorneys argue the case is legally invalid. US District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee in Washington, DC, will hear the arguments.

Comey has been in a public feud with President Donald Trump since the president fired him early in his first term. The former FBI director, appointed by Barack Obama in 2013, oversaw the investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 election. The two have exchanged sharp criticisms, with Comey describing Trump as a corrupt mafia don untethered to the truth in a book, and Trump accusing Comey of treason.

This latest prosecution follows two previous attempts. A first case in Virginia accused Comey of lying to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed because the prosecutor was illegally appointed. A second pending indictment charges him with threatening Trump via an Instagram post of seashells arranged to read 86 47. The former director is also seeking to dismiss that case.

Federal authorities began investigating the original disclosure in early 2017. Prosecutor John Durham, who later examined the FBI’s conduct regarding the 2016 election, wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges. A second investigation opened by the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia in 2019 was closed without charges in early 2020.

The current move by the justice department is one of several politically charged actions taken ahead of next week’s midterm elections. Court documents unsealed on Monday detailed the filing of the criminal information. Comey maintains he is innocent of the allegations in the new case.