James Comey is charged for the third time. His daughter beat the department in court the same day.
Prosecutors filed a two-count criminal information against Comey in Washington on Oct. 5 and kept it sealed until Judge Trevor McFadden opened it Monday. They say Comey, as FBI director, had his staff give classified information to a New York Times reporter for an Oct. 5, 2016, story on how Yahoo helped the government read email. The filing landed ten years to the day after the article. An information is a prosecutor's own paper. No grand jury voted on it.
Two earlier prosecution teams looked at the same leak and charged no one, Comey's lawyer Patrick Fitzgerald said. Comey's lawyers moved to dismiss: they argue the ten-year clock for espionage cases runs only to an indictment, and the department never got one. The department answered that filing an information stops the clock and buys it time to seek one.
The first Comey indictment, for lying to Congress, died in November when a judge found Lindsey Halligan unlawfully appointed. The second, the seashells case, waits until next year.
Monday morning, Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan ruled the department fired Maurene Comey illegally.
