Comey Charges: DOJ Tells Judge It May Bring More Charges Against James Comey
Prosecutors told a federal judge Friday that the Justice Department may seek additional charges against former FBI Director James Comey, as the judge pressed both sides on a novel deadline fight in the existing case.
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department may not be finished with James Comey. At a hearing Friday, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden that the department may bring additional charges against the former FBI director for alleged crimes committed after October 2016 and through April 2017, and that it is seeking an indictment from a grand jury, CNN reported.
The disclosure lands inside a fight over the clock. The current charges against Comey were brought by information - a charging document filed without a grand jury - in an effort to toll the 10-year statute of limitations under the Espionage Act. Comey's lawyers argue that an information cannot pause that deadline. McFadden acknowledged the difficulty from the bench: "There is at least one novel issue" in the case, he said. Prosecutors told the judge they have new information since the Durham investigation declined to bring charges in 2018.
McFadden also drew a line around how any new case is handled. "I will be extremely frustrated if there's some dawn raid," the judge warned, and prosecutors promised there would not be one. The judge was blunter about the road ahead for a grand-jury presentation: "Ham sandwiches are hard to indict these days."
Comey's attorney told the court that FBI agents have been placed outside Comey's home. The Friday hearing is the latest turn in a prosecution this station has followed since its first Comey file; what a grand jury does with the department's new information is now the question that decides whether the case against the former director grows.
