Former FBI Director James Comey has been charged with unlawfully disclosing national defense information and conspiring to share it with an unauthorized person, according to a criminal filing in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The criminal information, filed Oct. 5, 2026, alleges that Comey knowingly and willfully communicated national defense information to someone not authorized to receive it. Prosecutors also accuse him of conspiring with others to disclose the information.
According to the filing, Comey allegedly directed another person to provide national defense information to a reporter for a national news publication on Oct. 5, 2016. The document does not identify the reporter or publication or specify the information allegedly disclosed.
The case centers on a New York Times article published Oct. 5, 2016, by Charlie Savage and Nicole Perlroth about Yahoo’s compliance with a secret court order requiring it to scan incoming emails for a digital signature associated with a state-sponsored terrorist organization.
In a statement posted on Comey’s Substack, his lawyer, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said the latest case concerns the October 5, 2016, New York Times article. Fitzgerald said two separate teams of prosecutors investigated the article during the first Trump administration and concluded that no charges should be brought against anyone.
“Now, ten years after the article was published, the Government filed an ‘Information’ against Mr. Comey,” Fitzgerald said, arguing that the charges were unjustified. He added that Comey would fight the case in court.
The Times article reported that Yahoo had adapted an existing email-scanning system to identify messages containing a specific digital signature and make copies available to the FBI. The surveillance order raised concerns about government access to private communications because it involved scanning incoming email traffic across Yahoo’s service rather than targeting individual accounts.
Fitzgerald’s statement establishes that the case concerns the 2016 Times article, although the statement does not independently establish that Comey was the source of the information published in it. The allegations against him remain unproven in court.
In a video posted on Substack, Comey responded to the latest charges, calling them an “appalling abuse of the DOJ” and saying he remained innocent and unafraid.
Comey said he believed nothing had changed and maintained his innocence. He also expressed confidence in the federal judiciary and said he was grateful for his family and legal team.
The new case follows a separate prosecution over a social media post Comey made in May 2025 showing seashells arranged to spell out “86 47.” Critics interpreted the numbers as a threat against Trump, with “86” sometimes used to mean getting rid of someone and 47 referring to Trump as the 47th president.
Comey deleted the post and said he had not realized some people associated the numbers with violence. He said he opposed violence of any kind. Prosecutors later alleged that the post constituted a threat against the president, an accusation Comey has denied. He was indicted in that case in April 2026.
Comey was also indicted in September 2025 in a separate case accusing him of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding related to testimony about leaks to the media. That case was later dismissed by a federal judge over issues concerning the appointment of the prosecutor who brought it.