Federal prosecutors again accused James Comey of leaking national security information to the New York Times 10 years ago in a new batch of charges, according to court documents unsealed Monday.
The former FBI director’s legal team said that the charges have already been investigated twice but have not led to criminal charges. The recent case involved an Oct. 5, 2016 New York Times article that two different teams of prosecutors investigated during the first Trump administration.
The court papers accused Comey of knowingly and willfully leaking national defense information to be “communicated, delivered and transmitted to a person not entitled to receive it” around Oct. 4 and Oct. 5 of that year.
“Well they’re back again. 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 in an Instagram video responding to the allegations. “I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid of these people.”
“In September 2025, the Department of Justice used a person who was not actually a United States attorney to seek an indictment that was not actually shown to the grand jury,” a statement from Comey’s attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said. “It charged Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit. That case was promptly and properly dismissed.”
Both times this case was investigated they ruled that no charges should be brought against anyone. His lawyers argued that because it has been 10 years since the article was published and a judge has not issued an indictment, the charges should be dismissed.
“The next couple years are going to be hard for all of us,” Comey said. “It’s really important that we stand straight and keep the faith in America.”
The new charges came hours after it was ruled that the Trump administration “unlawfully fired” Comey’s daughter Maurene as a federal prosecutor last year. She was fired in July 2025 after serving as a trial lawyer for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, handling the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
