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Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have revived a dormant investigation into whether former FBI Director James Comey illegally leaked classified information to a trusted media cutout, two people familiar with the matter said, creating a third active criminal front against the longtime Trump antagonist.
The case centers on Comey’s decision to hand over sensitive memos documenting his private conversations with then-President Donald Trump to Columbia University Law Professor Daniel Richman, who then fed the material to The New York Times. The disclosures formed the basis of a May 2017 front-page story that fueled the Russia collusion narrative early in Trump’s first term.
The probe, if it results in charges, would mark the Trump Justice Department’s third indictment of Comey since last fall — on top of a Florida review of a broader conspiracy case and a fresh North Carolina grand-jury indictment returned April 28 for an alleged social-media threat against the president.
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This is James Comey in February 2020 talking to his friend Daniel Richman.
Comey said that Daniel Richman’s leaks (on Comey’s behalf) hastened the appointment of a special counsel.
Fast forward to today and a corrupt democrat operative in a robe ruled that evidence linked to… pic.twitter.com/iX0T1lPFvt
— The Researcher (@listen_2learn) December 12, 2025
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Sources described active meetings in recent weeks between acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s deputy office and a small team of EDVA prosecutors. The department has not yet decided whether to seek an indictment in Virginia, where Comey lives, or shift the case to New York, where Richman resides. Timing remains unclear, but the renewed push reflects heightened pressure inside the Trump DOJ to reopen matters the president has repeatedly called out as examples of a politicized “deep state.”
The development carries particular irony. In the earlier Mar-a-Lago documents case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, the Justice Department and FBI insisted that any document they labeled “classified” was off-limits to judicial review or disclosure to the defendant. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling that classification status is whatever the executive branch’s national-security apparatus says it is.
That precedent now applies with full force to Comey’s memos. If the current DOJ and intelligence community deem the documents classified — because they memorialize the president’s discussions on ongoing national-security matters — Comey’s defense that the memos were never classified collapses under the same legal standard his allies once championed.
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The classified-leaks investigation had stalled after an initial EDVA review last year. But it gained new life under Blanche’s leadership. It is separate from the prior EDVA prosecution of Comey for allegedly false statements to Congress about his leaks.
That case was dismissed on a technicality involving the appointment of then-U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan; the statute of limitations later ran out. Halligan, however, had the foresight to embed voluminous evidence of the Richman leaks directly into the court record before the dismissal. That material remains available and forms the backbone of the revived national-security case — which carries no statute of limitations.
The evidence is formidable. Beginning in January 2015, Comey formally hired Richman as a special government employee to serve as his back-channel to the press. Court exhibits from the earlier litigation detail a steady stream of emails in which Comey, using the alias “Reinhold Niebuhr7,” directed Richman to contact specific reporters — most notably New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt — and spoon-feed them narrative-shaping information.
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Richman coordinated scripts, arranged off-the-record briefings, and acted as Comey’s cutout on multiple sensitive matters, including the Clinton email investigation and the Russia probe. One exhibit even references the deliberate use of a secure room at FBI headquarters to destroy classified material in burn bags, underscoring the care Comey and his inner circle took to manage leaks while shielding themselves.
Richman’s ties run deeper than friendship. He is part of the same Lawfare network that includes Benjamin Wittes, another Comey ally. The arrangement gave Comey plausible deniability while weaponizing the FBI’s own files against a sitting president.
Comey now faces legal exposure in three states: a conspiracy probe in Florida’s Southern District, the North Carolina threats indictment, and the looming classified-leaks case in Virginia or New York. Trump has long labeled Comey a leaker who weaponized his office for political ends.
