A federal judge seemed skeptical Friday about how the Justice Department organized its third attempt to prosecute the former FBI director. James Comey but indicated he might wait for further action from prosecutors rather than immediately dropping the pending charges.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden heard arguments for over an hour on charges stemming from alleged leak of classified information ten years ago. at Comey Lawyers say the 10-year statute of limitations on those charges has expired.
Prosecutors filed two criminal charges earlier this month stemming from disclosures to the New York Times in 2016 regarding surveillance practices. However, the Justice Department brought the case through what’s called a criminal information, a procedure that allows them to temporarily avoid getting a grand jury indictment. Prosecutors say this actually satisfied the statute of limitations, but at Comey lawyers say the government needed to obtain an indictment by that deadline and failed to do so.
“The government is wrong. The statute of limitations has expired,” Comey’s lawyer said. Ephraim McDowell said.
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