A federal judge on Oct. 26 unsealed a criminal information with two counts under the Espionage Act against former FBI Director James Comey. It accuses him of knowingly and willfully communicating, and conspiring to communicate, national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it. The government filed it under seal on Oct. 5, without a grand jury indictment and exactly ten years after the alleged disclosure. The information claims Comey worked through one or more co-conspirators to have an unnamed individual share national defense information with a reporter for a national news publication.
Comey sought emergency dismissal on Oct. 9 and filed a full motion to dismiss on Oct. 16. He argues that Section 19 of the Internal Security Act extends the limitations period for Espionage Act offenses to ten years only for grand jury indictments, meaning the default five-year deadline for an information passed in 2021.
In its Oct. 23 opposition, the government argues that Section 19’s ten-year period can be satisfied by an information. The brief also sets out allegations not included in the charging document, claiming that an Oct. 5, 2016, a New York Times article about Yahoo’s role in U.S. email surveillance contained first-time disclosures of classified information. The government alleges the story closely resembled proposed talking points emailed to about 30 intelligence community officials less than four hours before it was published. It alleges that Comey, aiming to correct misinformation in a Reuters article from the day before, told staff to speak with Times reporter Charlie Savage.
In a reply filed Oct. 27, Comey maintains that Section 19 requires an indictment and disputes the government’s account of the leak. He cites the 2022 trial testimony of then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, who spoke with the The New York Times, that Baker believed the information was no longer classified and that the FBI Director and the Director of National Intelligence had authorized the disclosure.
This is the third federal criminal case against Comey since September 2025. The first, an indictment charging him with making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding, was dismissed after a federal judge held that Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed as the prosecutor who brought it (she was the only attorney who signed the indictment); the government’s appeal is pending before the Fourth Circuit. The second was an indictment charging him with threatening the president over his “86 47” seashell post, and pretrial motions are ongoing.
Related Just Security coverage: “Zero Evidence”: How Judges and Grand Juries Have Rejected Trump Administration Efforts to Investigate and Prosecute; Weaponizing the Espionage Act: What It Means; The Silly “Comey-the-Criminal” Meme — a.k.a. Why Claims that Comey’s a “Leaker” Ring Hollow
You can read the documents in full below:
Information
Comey’s Emergency Motion to Dismiss
Comey’s Motion to Dismiss
Government Response to Motion to Dismiss
Comey’s Reply
False Statements Indictment
Threats Indictment
