Judge found Maurene Comey’s firing unlawful hours before charges unsealed
James Comey’s criminal complaint was unsealed Monday, but the former FBI director has not been indicted. His defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charges last week, before the complaint became public.
CNBC reported that the criminal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleges that Comey, through one or more co-conspirators, directed an unnamed person to release national defense information to a reporter for a national news publication. The complaint charges him with knowingly communicating information related to national defense to someone not entitled to receive it and with conspiring to violate the law. The incident allegedly happened in October 2016.
The Justice Department has charged former FBI Director James Comey with federal crimes for a third time, saying he allegedly leaked a national security document. The charges were unsealed Monday, only hours after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department unlawfully fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, last year from her position as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The first Justice Department charges against Comey, for alleged false testimony to the U.S. Senate, were dismissed in November 2025. In April, a federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted Comey on charges related to his posting on social media a photograph of seashells on a beach arranged to form the numbers “86 47.”
The Justice Department said the “86,” which is often used in restaurants to indicate that a menu item is no longer available, was code for suggesting that someone kill Donald Trump, the 47th president. Comey’s attorneys sought dismissal of that case.
As FBI director, Comey oversaw the start in March 2017 of an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Donald Trump abruptly fired him in May 2017, and the Trump administration has brought multiple criminal cases against him since.
When the first charges were dismissed in November 2025, Comey posted a video on social media saying, “A message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies. I don’t care what your politics are, you have to see that as fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free.” In the same video, he said, “I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude is going to be the same. I’m innocent, I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary.”
After the third set of charges became public Monday, Comey said in a video on Substack, “Well, they’re back - again.” He added: “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.”
As of Monday’s unsealing, the case remained unindicted, with the defense’s dismissal motion filed the previous week.