Former FBI Director James Comey has been charged for the third time with federal crimes according to a court filing made public Monday.

Comey is charged in the new case with knowingly communicating information related to national defense to a person not entitled to receive it.

He is also charged with conspiring with others to violate the law against sharing such information.

The criminal complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. says Comey, “through one or more co-conspirators,” directed an unnamed individual “to disclose national defense information to a reporter for a national news publication.”

The complaint came to light hours after a federal judge in New York ruled that the Department of Justice had unlawfully fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, last year as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

James Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina in late April on charges related to his allegedly threatening the life of President Donald Trump by posting on Instagram a photo of seashells on a beach arranged to form the numbers “86 47.”

Prosecutors claim that the number “86” — which is often used in restaurants to indicate a menu item is no longer available — was code for suggesting someone kill Trump, who is the 47th U.S. president.

Comey has denied any wrongdoing in that case and is seeking to have the indictment tossed out by a judge.

Comey was first indicted in September 2025 by a federal grand jury in Virginia on charges of making a false statement and obstruction, in connection with testimony he gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020. Comey, in that testimony, denied authorizing another person at the FBI to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an investigation of Hillary Clinton and her emails when she was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016.

That first indictment was dismissed by a judge on Nov. 24, 2025, after the judge ruled that Lindsey Halligan, a then-interim U.S. attorney who obtained the indictments, had been invalidly appointed.

On the same day the judge tossed Comey’s case for that reason, the same judge dismissed an unrelated indictment obtained by Halligan against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had been accused of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home mortgage she obtained in 2020.

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