The Justice Department has brought charges against former FBI Director James Comey for the third time in 13 months, this time related to alleged leaks of national security information to the media.

According to court documents filed earlier this month and unsealed on Monday, federal prosecutors are accusing Comey of “willfully” mishandling information related to national defense in October 2016, resulting in the information appearing in media reports.

“Having reason to believe such information could be used to injure the United States and to the advantage of any foreign nation,” the court document said Comey “knowingly and willfully communicated, delivered, transmitted, and caused that information to be communicated, delivered, and transmitted to a person not entitled to receive it.”

The inquiry is the latest attempt to prosecute Comey, who is a prominent critic of President Donald Trump. Trump fired Comey in 2017 while Comey was leading the FBI investigation into potential ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. The first Trump Administration cited a memo related to Comey’s handling of the FBI investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails. Since then, Trump has publicly called for criminal investigations into Comey and celebrated the indictments he’s faced.

In a video posted on Monday, Comey said the latest investigation was an attempt to politically persecute him.

“They’re back, again,” Comey said. “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.”

“I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid of these people,” he added.

Comey’s attorneys argued in court filings that the alleged leaks had already been investigated twice during the first Trump Administration in 2017 and 2019, and neither had resulted in charges.

The Justice Department has pursued a number of investigations and indictments against prominent Democrats in recent weeks, appearing to break with the unofficial “unwritten 60-day rule” of avoiding filing new charges or taking public investigatory action that could influence an approaching election. Earlier this month, the Department secured a search warrant for the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D, Minn.), who called the effort “the latest escalation in [Trump’s] campaign of political intimidation.” The DOJ also secured an indictment against Virginia Senate Leader Louise Lucas, who led the Democrats’ counter-effort against Republican gerrymandering, on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. Lucas denied the allegations and said she would fight back against an attempt by “people in power … to silence those who stand up to them.”

What to know about the new Comey charges

According to court documents, prosecutors allege that around Oct. 4 and 5, 2016, Comey directed FBI staff to speak with the New York Times “about specific accuracy concerns” related to “misinformation which had appeared” in a Reuters report about Yahoo’s cooperation with U.S. surveillance.

In doing so, prosecutors contend, Comey “illegally transferred classified information.”

The Times article had described how Yahoo had adapted its existing email filtering system, used to detect spam, malware, and child sexual abuse material, to comply with a secret surveillance order to search messages for a computer “signature” associated with communications by a foreign, state-sponsored terrorist organization. The article said the Justice Department had obtained the order from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge in 2015 and that Yahoo was barred from disclosing it.

A spokesperson for the Times said the newspaper “does not comment on the sourcing behind our reporting, but we know from experience that prosecutions like this one are designed to discourage sources from providing journalists with the kind of valuable and illuminating information that the public needs to know.”

Comey’s lawyers argued in a motion to dismiss the case that the Trump Administration did not file an indictment within the 10-year statute of limitations. On Oct. 5, prosecutors filed the charges in a criminal information under seal in Federal District Court in Washington, which does not require approval from a grand jury or a judicial finding of probable cause, but have not obtained an indictment.

Previous charges against Comey

The Justice Department has brought multiple charges against Comey during Trump’s second term. It secured an indictment against him in September 2025 over allegations that he made false statements to Congress in 2020 related to alleged leaks to the media. The charges were thrown out by a federal judge in November, concluding that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed.

Comey was also indicted in April over allegedly making a threat against Trump by posting on Instagram a photograph of seashells on a North Carolina beach arranged to spell “86 47.” Prosecutors argued that the arrangement was intended as a threat “to kill” Trump, who is the 47th President. Comey, who deleted the post after initial backlash, said he did not intend the photograph to be a threat against Trump, and that he understood the numbers to be a “political message.” The numbers “86” have commonly been used to mean “to throw out” or “to refuse service to,” according to Merriam-Webster, but have also been used in some instances to mean “to kill.”

That case is set to go to trial in North Carolina in February 2027.

Earlier on Monday, a federal judge in New York ruled that the Justice Department had unlawfully fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, in July 2025. The judge ordered her retroactive reinstatement with back pay, concluding that the Trump Administration had violated the Constitution and federal law by claiming the President had executive authority to fire civil servants.

The clocks in most of the U.S. will fall back an hour this weekend as Daylight Saving Time once again comes to an end.

Early Sunday morning, most of the country will switch back to observing Standard Time, resulting in earlier sunrises and earlier sunsets. The looming clock change comes as some lawmakers, with the backing of President Donald Trump, have been trying to push a bill through Congress that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent and end the biannual time change. But the bill has been met with pushback from other lawmakers and sleep experts.

Here’s everything you need to know about the clock change this fall, and the state of the bill that’s trying to put a stop to the cycle of changing the clocks twice a year.

When do the clocks fall back in 2026?

Daylight Saving Time will end on Nov. 1 at 2 a.m. local time. At that time, the clocks will fall back an hour, to 1 a.m. local time.

How can I prepare for the clock change?

Dr. Alex Dimitriu, a psychiatrist and sleep medicine physician, likens the practice of changing the clocks twice a year to “an hour of jet lag,” adding that it can be an adjustment for many people. But the transition to Standard Time also means that people will gain an extra hour of sleep.

“Typically, moving to Standard Time is actually in sync with our circadian rhythm,” says Dr. Andrea Matsumura, a sleep medicine physician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “Most people have a fairly easy transition into Standard Time; it’s the Daylight Saving Time that you have to do a lot more work to adjust [to] losing an hour of sleep.”

In the days leading up to the start of Daylight Saving Time—which will happen next March—Matsumura typically advises that people start going to bed a little earlier to help make the time change “a little less painful.” But there’s less preparation needed in the days leading up to Standard Time; in fact, Matsumura recommends that people simply stick to their regular sleep schedule ahead of Nov. 1. 

Matsumura does suggest that people continue to take steps that normally help improve sleep, such as getting some daylight when they wake up in the morning and not drinking caffeine too late in the afternoon. Similarly, Dimitriu recommends that people do some physical movement in the morning, such as going for a walk, and avoid eating food too late in the evening.

What’s the status of the bill that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent?

Most states in the U.S. change their clocks twice a year: once in March as Daylight Saving Time begins, and again in November for Standard Time. Under the current federal law, states are permitted to opt out of Daylight Saving Time and remain in Standard Time year-round. Hawaii and most of Arizona have chosen that option, and so observe Standard Time throughout the year. Federal law does not, though, allow states to remain in Daylight Saving Time year-round.

A bill known as the Sunshine Protection Act, if passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, would change that. The measure would result in the country observing Daylight Saving Time year-round, though individual states could choose to forgo that path and instead stay in Standard Time permanently.

The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House with bipartisan support in July. But the measure is facing an uncertain fate in the Senate. Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told POLITICO that “there’s no clear path forward or consensus” on the bill yet.

Some lawmakers in the upper chamber, such as Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have criticized the proposal. Critics have argued that permanent Daylight Saving Time would mean much later sunrises in some parts of the country, resulting in people going to school and work in the dark.

Sleep experts, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have also objected to the bill because they say that Standard Time aligns better with people’s circadian rhythms.

Still, Trump has slammed critics of the Sunshine Protection Act and continued to push for the bill. At the beginning of October, he accused Cotton of “holding up” the bill, and urged his followers on Truth Social to “call Tom on his cellphone” to express support for the Sunshine Protection Act.