On Monday, a federal judge unsealed two felony counts against former FBI Director James Comey. Prosecutors filed them on October 5 with no grand jury vote. That was ten years to the day after the alleged leak.

Whatever you think of Comey, the rules used on him are the rules that would be used on you.

The paper is three pages long.

It says Comey ran the FBI in October 2016. Then, it says, he passed national defense information to someone not entitled to it. It also charges a plan to get that information to a reporter. Comey denies it.

Prosecutors filed it under seal. No grand jury signed off.

The law calls this kind of charge an information, and prosecutors write it and file it themselves, with no vote.

Whether Comey did it is for a court to decide. How he was charged deserves your attention now.

Most federal crimes carry a five-year deadline. That law covers either an indictment or an information. For Espionage Act cases, Congress gave ten years. That law names only "an indictment," which comes from a grand jury.

No grand jury has indicted Comey. When the ten-year mark arrived, DOJ filed an information instead.

A DOJ statement called that "a widely recognized practice" approved by "multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals." Its purpose, DOJ said, was to toll, or pause, the deadline.

DOJ's brief makes a fair point. The information alone can't convict Comey. "Mr. Comey cannot be convicted without either an indictment or his waiver of indictment," it says.

Comey's lawyers see it the other way. "An indictment fundamentally differs from an information," they wrote. The ten-year law names only indictments, so, they argue, the deadline passed. The judge must choose.

They also say two earlier teams of prosecutors looked at the same leak, and both declined to charge anyone.

Comey's lawyers say a prosecutor planned to seek an indictment on October 9. Then he agreed to wait 30 days. DOJ says the defense asked for that delay.

The judge is Trevor McFadden. On Monday he unsealed the case at Comey's request, and the Justice Department didn't object to that. He hasn't ruled yet on whether the filing beat the deadline.

As of Monday's court papers, no grand jury had indicted Comey.

A second case shows a similar pattern. On October 23, two former FBI officials surrendered. They're charged with lying to Congress in 2023 about the Hunter Biden investigations. Their lawyers call the charges baseless.

Prosecutors charged them by complaint. A magistrate judge signed it, but no grand jury has voted. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui called it "rare that we have charges this old coming in this nature."

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a new complaint overnight that added an obstruction charge, though no judge had signed it. Faruqui struck it. As of Tuesday night, he hadn't ruled on the original complaint.

The grand jury is older than the country.

In 1734, New York's royal governor wanted a printer named John Peter Zenger punished. Zenger's paper had mocked him.

Two grand juries were asked to indict Zenger. Both refused.

So the governor's attorney general went around them. He filed an information. Zenger sat in jail for months.

In 1735, a trial jury acquitted him anyway.

Decades later, the Fifth Amendment wrote the grand jury into the Constitution. "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury."

Today a federal grand jury has 16 to 23 citizens. At least 12 must agree before anyone is indicted. They meet in secret and hear the evidence.

You can give up that right. People often do when they plan to plead guilty. But under federal rules, only the accused can give it up, in open court.

Deadlines are old, too. In 1970 the Supreme Court said why they exist. They protect people from charges "when the basic facts may have become obscured by the passage of time."

Memories fade. Records get lost. Witnesses die.

So every citizen gets two checks, a clock that runs out and a panel of neighbors who must agree.

Grand juries do say no. NPR reports that under this administration, grand juries in Washington and elsewhere have refused several times to indict in political cases.

The government has a real case here.

Leaking national defense information is a crime. This case turns on events inside the FBI a decade ago, and two probes already took years. If a court agrees the filing paused the clock, prosecutors were within the law.

DOJ also cites rulings from appeals courts in other parts of the country. Comey's side says those cases were different, and the appeals court in Washington hasn't ruled. Neither side is making this up.

And a complaint isn't new. Prosecutors often use one for a quick arrest. A judge still has to find probable cause.

The harder part comes next.

DOJ's brief agrees on one point. "The grand jury right belongs to the accused, and only he can give it up."

A grand jury check that a prosecutor can work around isn't much of a check.

An information filed with no waiver asks no citizen anything. A complaint used when no one is running asks a grand jury nothing until later. Each may be legal. Each moves the citizens to the back of the line.

Standards don't change with headlines. The tools this Justice Department uses on Comey will pass to the next one.

Picture a prosecutor who dislikes you, your church or your county sheriff, racing a deadline of his own. You'd want the rules tight. You'd want them tight now, while the target is someone else.

Rights come with responsibility. That cuts both ways. Comey owes the law an answer if he broke it. The government owes him the same process it owes you.

You'll likely never face an Espionage Act charge. The grand jury still concerns you.

You're part of the system the Fifth Amendment set up.

Get a jury summons, and you might sit on a grand jury yourself. You'd hear a prosecutor's case before anyone else does, and you'd vote yes or no on whether it goes forward. That vote is the people's check on federal power.

When prosecutors route around grand juries, they route around people like you.

Think about the deadline, too. Maybe you ran a business ten years ago. Maybe you signed papers you barely remember. The witnesses who could clear you have moved away, retired or died, and the old records went to the shredder.

A deadline is a promise. After a set time, the government has to let it go.

If one office can stretch that promise on its own, it isn't much of a promise.

Veterans swore to support and defend the Constitution. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which makes a grand jury the gate for most felony charges.

Whatever happens to Comey's case, the road matters. The Constitution built that road, and it runs through a grand jury.

Strip away the names and one question is left. Can a prosecutor do on his own what the Constitution gave to a panel of citizens?

The judge in Comey's case hasn't answered that yet. DOJ has a real argument and real cases behind it. But the Fifth Amendment put ordinary people between the government and a felony charge on purpose. Every shortcut around that panel leaves you a little less protected.

Hold the line on process, even when you don't care for the defendant. A deadline that bends for one prosecutor bends for all of them.

Watch for Judge McFadden's ruling on whether the Comey filing beat the ten-year clock. Watch whether the two former FBI officials are indicted within the 30 days the Speedy Trial Act generally sets. And picture the same methods in hands you trust less.

DOJ Files New Espionage Act Case Against Comey
Both sides of the fight over whether a prosecutor's filing can stop a ten-year clock, in their own words.
Newsmax, 2026-10-26

Former FBI Officials Charged With Lying To Congress About Hunter Biden Probes
The government's side: what the complaint says documents and witnesses show about the 2023 testimony.
The Federalist, 2026-10-23

Why Trump's DOJ skipped the grand jury to drop a Hunter Biden laptop bomb
Sol Wisenberg argues a complaint let prosecutors control the timing and avoid a grand jury saying no.
Washington Examiner, 2026-10-27

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John Braddock
Between the Lines
Stand tall. Stay disciplined.