By Karim Hammam
Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey will ask a federal judge on Friday to block the Justice Department from pursuing a third criminal case against him, according to court documents unsealed Monday. The move comes as the department filed a charging document known as a "criminal information" this month, bypassing a grand jury over allegations tied to a decade-old news media leak.
Case centers on decade-old leak investigation
The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story about a secret court order requiring Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. Federal authorities, including prosecutor John Durham, began investigating the disclosure in early 2017. Durham later wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges against anyone in connection with the leak, Comey's attorneys said in a recent court filing.
Previous investigations recommended no charges
In 2019, the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name "Tropical Vortex." That investigation was closed without any charges filed in early 2020. The Justice Department defended its current maneuver as an effort to extend the legal time limit for seeking a grand jury indictment, but Comey's lawyers have called the case legally invalid.
Politically charged context
The effort to prosecute Comey is part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week's midterm elections. Comey was fired by President Donald Trump in May 2017 while overseeing an investigation into whether Trump's campaign conspired with Russia. The two men have been bitterly at odds since, with Comey likening Trump to a corrupt mafia don and Trump accusing him of treason. The first criminal case against Comey, filed in Virginia, was dismissed after a judge concluded the prosecutor was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges Comey with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells arranged as "86 47."
Comey maintains innocence
"Well, they're back — again," Comey said in a video statement Monday after the documents were unsealed. "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. Nothing's changed with me; I'm still innocent, I'm still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary." U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee, was expected to hear arguments on the motion Friday.
