Justice Department asks grand jury to indict Comey in defense secrecy case | Today’s news
(Bloomberg) — The Justice Department is actively working to secure a grand jury indictment against former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly directing the sharing of classified national defense information, a federal prosecutor said in court Friday.
“We’re still very diligently going to the grand jury,” Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Farahnak said at the hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The proceedings focused on Comey’s motion to produce a criminal complaint — an incriminating document — filed in Washington on the eve of the statute of limitations.
Comey, a frequent target of the Justice Department during the second Trump administration, is accused of being involved in leaking classified information to the New York Times in October 2016. The DOJ said it filed the charging document “to toll the statute of limitations” as it relates to the allegations.
Comey’s lawyers say the criminal information is premature and that the law requires an indictment to be filed within 10 years.
Farahnak told Judge Trevor McFadden that the grand jury process is still ongoing and that the Justice Department has evidence of potential other actions that would be subject to the statute of limitations, including as recently as April 2017.
The DOJ is trying to keep the prosecution alive while Comey’s lawyers push McFadden not to wait for an indictment and drop the case. Cooley LLP’s Ephraim McDowell noted in court Friday that FBI agents were spotted outside his home.
There shouldn’t be an arrest “threat hanging over Mr. Comey’s head,” McDowell said.
The case is US v. Comey, DDC, No. 1:26-cr-00229, 10/30/26.
To contact the reporter for this story: Celine Castronuovo in Washington at ccastronuovo@bloombergindustry.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ellen M. Gilmer at egilmer@bloomberglaw.com
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