MSNBC live coverage of James Comey’s case now centers on a filing that may decide whether the Justice Department’s third attempt to charge him survives. Prosecutors used an information on Oct. 5, 2026, exactly 10 years to the day after the alleged conduct, and Comey has moved to dismiss the charges.
Comey’s dispute is not about the facts alone. It turns on procedure: the government says he caused an FBI employee to transmit classified information to the press a decade ago, while he says he did not consent to being charged by information and that he did not waive his Fifth Amendment right to an indictment.
James Comey and the information
Comey has put the issue in plain terms: “Why did prosecutors bring those charges by what’s called an information, not an indictment?” He also intends to fight the charges. The difference matters because an ordinary five-year statute of limitations allows prosecutors to proceed by either indictment or information, but the Espionage Act’s 10-year limit names only indictment.
That wording creates the narrow opening in this case. Supreme Court precedent requires courts to presume differences in language are intentional, so the missing word in the 10-year statute is now the center of the legal fight. Congress used the phrase “either an indictment or an information” in a similar 10-year statute of limitations for a series of immigration offenses, which gives Comey’s side a textual argument that the Espionage Act was drafted differently on purpose.
DOJ’s 10-year deadline
The Justice Department filed on the exact cutoff date, and that timing is the case’s most consequential fact. If the alleged conduct did occur 10 years earlier, then the filing lands right at the edge of the Espionage Act’s limitations period. Prosecutors may argue the alleged conspiracy extended into 2017, which would keep the clock running longer.
If that argument fails, the case ends there. If the judge accepts it, the DOJ still has to go to a grand jury for an indictment because Comey did not waive his right to one. That means the current filing is not the final word on whether the government can keep the case alive.
What the judge decides next
The immediate question is whether the judge accepts the DOJ’s reading of the statute and the timeline. The motion to dismiss forces the court to decide whether an information can stand under a 10-year law that mentions only indictment, and whether the alleged conduct reached far enough into 2017 to keep the case within the deadline.
For Comey, the answer could end the prosecution now or send it back into the grand jury process. For the Justice Department, the filing date bought time, but only if the court agrees the statute can stretch that far.
