The Justice Department brought two criminal counts against James Comey on Monday, accusing the former FBI director of leaking information related to national defense. It is the third time the Trump administration has filed criminal charges against him.

The charges were filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. Justice Department prosecutors allege that Comey leaked the information in 2016 and conspired with an unnamed person to provide it to a national news outlet. The charges provide few details about the information they say he disclosed.

Rather than obtain a grand-jury-approved indictment at the outset, prosecutors filed the case through a criminal information that was not approved by a judge or issued by a grand jury. Prosecutors still must obtain grand-jury approval, The Guardian reported. The filing through an information appeared to be an effort to secure the charges quickly before the 10-year statute of limitations expired.

Patrick Fitzgerald, Comey’s attorney, said the charges were related to a New York Times article published on 5 October 2016 that prosecutors had already investigated. Fitzgerald said in a statement: “Ten years after the article was published, the government filed an ‘information’ against Mr Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr Comey with crimes he did not commit.”

Comey’s lawyers asked the court to dismiss the charges. In an unsealed filing, they argued that the statute of limitations had expired and that the matter had been investigated twice, with prosecutors twice deciding not to file charges. They also argued that the law required an indictment, not a criminal information, within the 10-year period.

Trump fired Comey in 2017 while the former FBI director was working on an investigation into whether Trump allies had colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Comey has since become an outspoken critic of the president.

Last year, the Justice Department charged Comey with lying to Congress. A judge threw out those charges after finding that the prosecutor handling the case — a White House ally installed to bring it — had been unlawfully appointed.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department filed charges against Comey in federal court in North Carolina over a picture of seashells arranged to spell “8647.” For some people, the number is shorthand for getting rid of Trump, and legal experts said the case was thin.

In a video posted online, Comey responded: “Well, they’re back again. It would almost be funny if wasn’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice. One that we cannot become numb to.”

The latest filing remains subject to grand-jury approval.