After Watching Its Earlier Indictments of James Comey Collapse, Trump's Justice Department Charged the Former FBI Director Yet Again — This Time With Two Espionage Act Counts Over an Alleged 2016 Leak of National-Defense Information to a Reporter — but Filed It as a Bare "Criminal Information" on the Very Last Day Before the Ten-Year Clock Ran Out, Without a Grand Jury, a Maneuver Legal Experts Say Likely Cannot Stop the Statute of Limitations and That Comey Can Simply Refuse to Consent To
On October 26, 2026, newly unsealed court documents revealed that the Trump Justice Department had charged former FBI Director James Comey for a third time — now with two counts under the Espionage Act: willfully communicating national-defense information to a person not entitled to receive it, and conspiring to do so. The theory is that Comey, "through one or more co-conspirators," directed someone to disclose national-defense information to a reporter at a national news publication (reported to be the New York Times), with the alleged conduct dated to October 5, 2016. The problem is the calendar and the procedure. The Espionage Act carries a ten-year statute of limitations, which expired on October 5, 2026 — and the DOJ filed not a grand-jury indictment but a bare "criminal information" on that exact last day, apparently because it could not get a grand jury to indict in time. Legal experts, including former prosecutor Elie Honig, say an information filed without a grand jury or the defendant's consent likely cannot toll the ten-year clock, and Comey cannot be tried on an information alone unless he waives indictment — which he has no reason to do. His lawyers moved to dismiss, arguing the statute "explicitly demands" an indictment that the government never secured and that the charge is time-barred. Comey's response was a shrug: "Nothing's changed with me." He is still innocent, he said. This is the third swing at the man Trump fired in 2017, after the earlier cases — including the one built around a photo of seashells — fell apart, and it has the hallmarks of the previous ones: a prosecution driven by the president's grudge rather than a case the government can actually win.