Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have revived a separate investigation into whether former FBI Director James Comey leaked classified information, a move that could result in the Trump Justice Department's third indictment of Comey since last fall, Breitbart reported, citing Bloomberg Law.

The renewed probe centers on Comey's dissemination of documents to Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, a longtime confidant who once held security clearance and badge access at the FBI. Two anonymous sources close to the matter said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has been holding active meetings on the case in recent weeks.

No decision has been made on whether to present an indictment to a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. But the trajectory is clear: the DOJ is not done with James Comey.

A pattern of leak allegations stretching back years

The classified leak investigation is not new ground. It builds on a record of controversy that dates to Comey's own sworn testimony. In June 2017, Comey told Congress he deliberately arranged for the contents of at least one memo, documenting private conversations with President Trump, to reach The New York Times through a friend. That friend was Richman.

National Review reported that DOJ prosecutors had been investigating whether Comey leaked a classified Russian intelligence document to the media, with the inquiry focused on 2017 articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post describing the document's role in Comey's handling of the Clinton email case. Investigators examined whether Richman provided the document to reporters.

Comey's defense has been consistent: he insists the material he shared was not classified, and that Trump was "just wrong" about the nature of the leak. He told Fox News that the memo contents had been cleared by the FBI and were included in his book after that clearance.

But the DOJ's inspector general reached a different conclusion. Michael Horowitz found that Comey violated FBI policy by retaining and leaking memos of his conversations with the president, the New York Post reported. Horowitz wrote:

"By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees."

That finding did not lead to prosecution at the time. The DOJ declined to bring charges. Now, years later, prosecutors appear to be revisiting the matter with fresh intent.

The Richman connection

Daniel Richman was not simply a friend Comey happened to call. He was a formal part of the FBI apparatus. Fox News reported that Richman served as an FBI special government employee from at least June 30, 2015, until February 2017. Sources familiar with his status said he was assigned to "special projects" by Comey and had a security clearance as well as badge access to the building.

Richman also publicly defended Comey in media appearances during the Clinton email probe, raising questions about whether his dual role as insider and public advocate compromised the handling of sensitive information. When pressed about Richman's FBI status, Comey said "it wasn't relevant" because Richman left the bureau in February 2017.

That timeline matters. If Richman received classified material after his departure, or if the documents Comey funneled through him contained classified content regardless of when they were shared, the legal exposure is real. The DOJ's earlier subpoena of Comey over his role in the 2017 Russia intelligence assessment signaled that investigators were already pulling on these threads.

A failed first case and a second indictment already in hand

The Eastern District of Virginia office failed in its first criminal case against Comey last year. That case involved alleged false statements to Congress. The details of the specific statements at issue have not been publicly disclosed in this reporting, but the acquittal or dismissal did not end the DOJ's interest.

Meanwhile, a separate two-count indictment has already been filed against Comey in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. That case stems from a social media post Comey made in 2025, an Instagram photograph depicting seashells arranged on a North Carolina beach to spell out "86 47."

The indictment, delivered by a grand jury, charged that Comey "did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States" by posting the image, which prosecutors said "a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States." The grand jury also issued a warrant for his arrest.

Comey deleted the post after people immediately criticized it for tangentially implying violence against the president. The broader investigation into alleged wrongdoing by senior intelligence officials has expanded well beyond Comey alone.

Three indictments, one question

If the classified leak probe results in charges, Bloomberg Law noted it would mark the Trump DOJ's third indictment of Comey since last fall. That is a remarkable legal position for a man who once ran the nation's premier law enforcement agency.

Comey's defenders will argue this is political retribution, a weaponized DOJ settling scores. That argument has a surface appeal, but it runs into a stubborn problem: the inspector general's own findings. Horowitz, who served under the Obama administration, concluded that Comey violated policy and set a "dangerous example." That is not a partisan talking point. It is an official finding from the government's own internal watchdog.

The question is whether the classified leak probe can succeed where the false-statements case failed. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have already stumbled once. The standard for proving unauthorized disclosure of classified material is demanding, and Comey's legal team will fight every step. Cases involving classified leaks by government insiders have historically been difficult to prosecute, though not impossible when the paper trail is clear.

President Trump has long maintained that Comey's conduct amounted to an illegal leak. As AP News reported, Trump publicly accused Comey of unlawfully leaking classified information through his memos, stating that Comey "illegally leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION but doesn't understand what he did or how serious it is." Comey responded simply: "Facts really do matter."

They do. And the facts here include a former FBI director who admitted under oath to engineering a leak through a friend with security clearance and badge access, an inspector general who called it a dangerous example, and a Justice Department that has now come back for a second look.

Accountability or overreach?

Open questions remain. What specific classified information is alleged to have been leaked in this probe? Will the DOJ present the case to a grand jury? And can prosecutors build a case strong enough to survive in court after their first attempt fell short?

The Comey family's ongoing clashes with the DOJ over credibility only add another layer to the saga. But the legal merits will ultimately be decided by evidence, not by family feuds or political narratives.

What is not in dispute is the underlying conduct. Comey took government records. He gave them to an associate. He did so to generate media coverage and force a political outcome. The inspector general said so. Comey himself said so, under oath.

Ordinary federal employees who handle classified material know exactly what would happen to them if they did the same thing. The only real question is whether the rules apply equally when the person holding the documents once sat in the director's chair.