The Trump administration has now filed a third set of criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey, this time accusing him of two counts related to the unlawful dissemination of national defense information. The charges stem from an October 2016 New York Times article by Charlie Savage about Yahoo being ordered to scan its email traffic for a computer signature allegedly tied to a terrorist organization. Prosecutors allege Comey directed a subordinate to leak classified information to the reporter. The procedural mechanism matters here as much as the substance. Rather than seeking an indictment through a grand jury — the standard route for federal criminal charges — prosecutors filed a "criminal information," which bypasses grand jury review entirely. Comey's defense attorney Pat Fitzgerald emphasized this distinction, noting the government had already investigated the underlying matter twice before and declined to bring charges both times. The case is being overseen by Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee on the US District Court in Washington, DC. This is the third attempt in roughly a year. The first, in September 2025, charged Comey with lying to Congress and obstructing a legislative proceeding. That case was dismissed because the lead prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was found to have been unlawfully appointed. The second, filed in April 2025, accused Comey of threatening the president by posting a photo of seashells arranged to spell "86 47" — with 47 referencing Trump as the 47th president and "86" interpreted by the administration as implying violence rather than its common service-industry meaning of discarding something. That case remains ongoing. The political backdrop is unusually explicit. In September 2025, Trump publicly posted a message to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi asking why no action had been taken against Comey, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. "They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done," Trump wrote, concluding with "JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW." Five days later, the first indictment came. The timeline between presidential demand and prosecutorial action collapses the usual pretense of DOJ independence. On the same Monday the third charges were revealed, a federal judge in a separate case ruled that Comey's daughter Maurene Comey — a former assistant US attorney — had been unlawfully fired under Trump's second term. The court found her termination was retaliation against her father and ordered retroactive reinstatement with backpay. The ruling creates a judicial record that the administration's actions toward the Comey family constitute retaliation. The structural question is not whether Comey is guilty of any particular charge. It is whether the Department of Justice can sustain a pattern of sequential prosecutions against a single political critic of the president, each filed after the previous one fails, using progressively weaker procedural tools. Two prior investigations declined charges. The first prosecution collapsed on appointment grounds. The second rests on interpreting seashell art as a death threat. The third bypasses a grand jury. Each failure lowers the bar for the next attempt. Comey, for his part, has denied all wrongdoing and his legal team has moved to dismiss the latest charges. "The next couple years are going to be hard for all of us," Comey said in a Substack video. He is not wrong about the timeline. The administration is halfway through its term, and the escalation curve shows no sign of flattening.
