DOJ Files Third Set of Federal Charges Against Former FBI Director Comey

The accumulation of three separate federal charging actions against a single former law enforcement official within one administration marks a degree of prosecutorial focus with few modern parallels.

Former FBI Director James Comey is facing a new set of federal charges, according to a charging document made public on Monday, October 26, 2026, as reported by Axios. The new charges represent the third time the Department of Justice under the current Trump administration has brought a federal case against Comey.

Prosecutors allege in the charging document that Comey directed the disclosure of national defense information to a reporter through one or more co-conspirators, according to Axios. The specific statutory counts named in the charging document, the identity of the reporter, and the identity of the alleged co-conspirators were not fully described in the publicly available summary of the filing at the time of publication. The full charging document, filed in federal court, would contain the complete statutory citations, the names of co-defendants or unnamed co-conspirators, and the specific dates and acts alleged.

Comey served as FBI Director from 2013 until May 2017, when President Trump dismissed him during Trump's first term in office. Comey's dismissal, and subsequent congressional testimony about conversations with the president, made him a recurring subject of public criticism from Trump across both terms.

The first and second rounds of charges brought by the current Trump DOJ against Comey are matters of prior public court record. The precise statutes, case numbers, and dispositions of those earlier proceedings are contained in federal court dockets, which are publicly accessible through the federal PACER system. The current story does not detail the status of those earlier cases, and it is unknown from available source material whether those prior cases remain pending, were dismissed, or reached another resolution.

Charges involving the disclosure of national defense information typically fall under 18 U.S.C. Section 793, commonly known as the Espionage Act, though that specific statute has not been confirmed by available source material as the charge in this instance. The relevant charging document would name the statute under which Comey is charged.

Comey has previously acknowledged, including in congressional testimony and public statements on record, that he directed a friend to share the contents of memos he wrote describing conversations with President Trump with a reporter in 2017. The DOJ Inspector General report released in 2019 found that Comey violated FBI policy by retaining and sharing those memos, but the report did not find that the shared portions contained classified information at the time of sharing. Whether the current charges relate to that 2017 episode or to a separate, subsequent disclosure is not established by available source material.

The distinction between the 2019 Inspector General finding and any new charging theory would be central to the legal proceedings. A defendant facing charges under a national defense information statute can contest whether the information in question met the legal standard for national defense information, whether the defendant had lawful authority to possess or disclose the material, and whether intent to harm the United States or aid a foreign nation was present, depending on the specific subsection charged.

Comey's legal representation and any public response from his attorneys were not detailed in source material available at the time of publication. Defense counsel filings in the case would be publicly accessible through federal court dockets upon their submission.

The Department of Justice did not issue a press release summarizing the charges in the source material reviewed for this report. DOJ press releases for federal indictments and criminal informations are posted publicly on justice.gov and would provide the official government summary of the alleged conduct, the specific counts, and the maximum penalties associated with each count.

Several material facts remain unknown from currently available public records. These include: the case number and jurisdiction of the new filing; the identity or number of alleged co-conspirators; the identity of the reporter alleged to have received the information; the date range of the alleged conduct; and the current procedural status of Comey's two prior federal cases. The full charging document, accessible through the federal PACER court records system, would answer each of these questions.