Admin Look to Prosecute Comey Again    10/27 06:08

   The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James Comey for what it 
calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort the former FBI 
director's lawyers immediately dismissed as legally invalid and outside the 
legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a criminal indictment.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James 
Comey for what it calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort 
the former FBI director's lawyers immediately dismissed as legally invalid and 
outside the legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a 
criminal indictment.

   The allegations from the Justice Department were revealed Monday in newly 
unsealed court documents that shed light on a closed-door fight that represents 
an unmistakable escalation in the administration's targeting of Comey, a 
longtime critic and foe of President Donald Trump who has faced two other 
criminal cases since the Republican returned to the White House last year.

   The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically 
charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to 
next week's midterm elections.

   "Well, they're back -- again," Comey said in a video statement Monday. "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. Nothing's changed with me; I'm 
still innocent, I'm still not afraid of these people -- and I still believe in 
the independent federal judiciary."

   The Justice Department said it had filed what's known as a "criminal 
information" to extend the statute of limitations for charges in the case.

   "Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a 
widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple 
Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we 
will not comment further," a department spokesperson said.

   Asked about the Comey case, Trump told reporters upon arriving back to Joint 
Base Andrews in Maryland late Monday following his rally in Mississippi that "I 
don't know much about it. I just heard about it."

   He added, "He's a dirty cop, James Comey. But I know nothing about it."

   An information can be filed without the approval of a judge or a grand 
jury's finding of probable cause to a court. Comey's lawyers made clear that 
they intend to fight the charges as invalid because the Justice Department did 
not file an indictment, which must be voted on by a grand jury, inside the 
10-year statute of limitations required under the law.

   "For the third time in little more than one year, the Department of Justice 
has attempted to charge Mr. Comey with a federal crime. Mr. Comey steadfastly 
maintains his innocence," his attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement.

   The allegation was previously investigated 

   The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story related 
to a secret court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages 
potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two 
government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the order 
from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Yahoo was 
barred from publicly disclosing.

   Federal authorities, including prosecutor John Durham, began investigating 
the disclosure in early 2017. Durham, who later investigated the FBI's conduct 
as it scrutinized potential ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential 
campaign, wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal 
charges against anyone in connection with the disclosure, Comey's attorneys 
said in a recent court filing.

   In January 2019, the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Columbia 
opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name "Tropical 
Vortex." But that investigation was closed without any charges filed in 
February 2020.

   "Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought 
against anyone. Now, 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 that he did 
not commit," Fitzgerald said.

   Prosecutors in a newly unsealed filing said investigators found evidence 
that Comey "sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by 
way of Reuters the day before" that New York Times story was published, 
directed his staff to speak to a journalist at the newspaper related to 
accuracy concerns "and thereby illegally transferred classified information."

   The criminal information was filed under seal on Oct. 5, 10 years after the 
2016 story was published. "But," Comey's lawyers said, "the applicable statute 
of limitations explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense; 
an information does not suffice."

   They have asked a judge to dismiss the information, a request that is still 
pending.

   Trump and Comey have a long and uneasy history 

   The first criminal case against Comey, filed in federal court in Virginia, 
accused him of having lied to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed by a judge who 
concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed. 
A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening 
Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of 
"86 47," a case Comey has sought to dismiss.

   The prosecutions are part of a Trump retribution campaign that has even 
extended to Comey's daughter, Maurene, who was fired from her job as a Justice 
Department prosecutor in New York last year in a termination that a federal 
judge on Monday ruled was illegal.

   Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been 
appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that 
as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush's 
Republican administration.

   But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey 
resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty 
to the president -- an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he 
documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

   Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties 
between Russia and Trump's campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special 
counsel Robert Mueller, found that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election 
and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove 
a criminal collaboration.

   The two men have been bitterly at odds ever since Comey's firing.

   Comey in 2018 published a memoir, "A Higher Loyalty," that painted Trump in 
deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterizing him as 
"untethered to truth." Trump, for his part, has repeatedly claimed that Comey 
should face charges for "treason" -- an accusation Comey dismissed as "dumb 
lies" -- and called him an "untruthful slime ball."

   The Justice Department has made a series of splashy moves in recent weeks , 
including a criminal complaint last Friday charging two former FBI officials 
with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations concerning 
Hunter Biden, and the search by federal agents of the Washington home of 
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.