New federal case against James Comey centers again on alleged leak of classified information

A third federal case against James Comey, which was unsealed Monday, centers once again on evidence the former FBI director allegedly directed his staff to leak classified information to the press.

The “criminal information” filing submitted to the court by prosecutors earlier this month, and made public Monday, contains allegations that Comey “communicated” or “transmitted” national defense information to an individual not cleared to receive it, in this case, a reporter.

The new case, filed under seal Oct. 5 in federal court in Washington, D.C., also includes charges alleging Comey conspired with others to leak the information. It alleges that Comey, “through one and more co-conspirators,” directed a person identified only as “Individual #1” to disclose the information to a reporter for a national news publication.

Prosecutors later identified the previously unnamed reporter as Charlie Savage, of The New York Times, according to an Oct. 23 government filing, which was unsealed along with the criminal information filing.  

The story referenced in the case is Savage’s Oct. 5, 2016, article headlined “Yahoo Said to Have Aided U.S. Email Surveillance by Adapting Spam Filter,” which described how Yahoo complied with a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order to scan customer emails.

“The United States’ investigation has uncovered evidence that former FBI Director, James B. Comey, sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before,” Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak wrote in the subsequent filing. “The investigation has uncovered evidence that Mr. Comey directed staff to speak to Mr. Savage about specific accuracy concerns related to the Reuters article, and thereby illegally transferred classified information.”

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden unsealed the case Monday at Comey’s request, writing that “criminal charges against a former FBI director for his conduct while in office are of significant public interest.”

Comey, who has denied wrongdoing in all three cases, responded in a video posted Monday.

“Well, they’re back – again,” he said. “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. … I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid of these people.”

A race against the statute of limitations

Federal felony charges are ordinarily brought by a grand jury indictment.  A criminal information filing, by contrast, is filed by prosecutors alone, without a grand jury vote or a judge’s finding of probable cause. Comey cannot face trial on criminal information alone unless he waives indictment. 

The Justice Department said it filed the information on the anniversary of the article to keep the 10-year statute of limitations from expiring while it continues pursuing the case.

Comey’s lawyers moved earlier this month to dismiss the case, arguing that both counts “are based exclusively on the October 5, 2016, alleged disclosure exactly ten years before the government’s filed criminal information.”

“The applicable statute of limitations explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense; an information [filing] does not suffice,” they wrote. “An indictment fundamentally differs from an information" filing.  

The judge has not ruled on the motion.

Comey attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the leak had already been examined and closed twice.

“This most recent case involves an October 5, 2016 New York Times article that two different teams of prosecutors investigated during the first Trump administration,” Fitzgerald said. “Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone.”

What earlier leak probes found

Just the News previously reported on declassified FBI memos detailing “Tropic Vortex,” a classified-leak investigation that then-U.S. Attorney John Durham and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service opened in March 2017. The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office later took it over and declined to prosecute in January 2020.

The timing in those memos line up with the information provided in the unsealed court documents this week, but it is not clear if both are referring to the same articles. The memos said Tropic Vortex centered on an “October 2016” Times article that cited two government sources, one of them then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. 

“The USPIS Investigation also revealed Baker disclosed USG [U.S. government] classified information to the NYT under the belief he was ultimately instructed and authorized to do so by then FBI Director James Comey," one summary memo reads. "For example, during interviews, Baker indicated FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki instructed him (Baker) to disclose the information to the NYT, and Baker understood Rybicki was conveying this instruction and authorization from Comey.”

The new charging documents do not name Individual #1 or the alleged co-conspirators, and prosecutors have not said whether the case grows out of Tropic Vortex. 

Comey’s first indictment, in September 2025, also centered on media leaks. It charged that he lied to Congress in 2020 when he denied authorizing anyone at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports. Sources previously told Just the News the person Comey allegedly authorized was his friend and FBI special government employee Daniel Richman.

Richman told agents in a separate leak probe, code-named “Arctic Haze,” that he communicated with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt “to correct stories critical of Comey, the FBI and to shape future press coverage,” according to FBI memos Just the News first reported. Asked whether he passed classified information to Schmidt, Richman said he was sure “with a discount” that he had not.

Prosecutors later filed emails showing Comey urging Richman in November 2016 about a Times reporter’s coverage of the Clinton email probe. “Perhaps you can make him smarter,” Comey wrote, according to the Justice Department filing.

That case was dismissed in November 2025 after a judge found that the prosecutor who secured it, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed. Comey was indicted again in April in North Carolina over his “86 47” seashell post; that case is set for trial in February 2027. Prosecutors allege the phrase should be interpreted as a call to 86 – "kill" – the 47th president, Donald Trump.