Trump administration attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey again

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 invalid and outside the time limit for when the Justice Department can file a case.

The allegations from the Justice Department came in documents unsealed Monday in federal court in Washington that shed light on a fight that has played out behind closed doors over the last month. It comes as prosecutors try to bring what would be the third criminal case against Comey, a longtime critic and foe of President Donald Trump, since the Republican returned to the White House last year.

“Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement released after the documents dropped. “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 an independent federal judiciary.”

The Justice Department, for its part, said it had filed what’s known as a criminal information to extend the 10-year statute of limitations for bringing a 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.

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.

Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer And Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press