Federal prosecutors told a judge last month they considered treating The New York Times as a conspirator in a leak case against James B. Comey. This move would mark a major escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the media. It remains unclear how the Justice Department might now proceed.
It remains unclear how the Justice Department might proceed. The move would be a major escalation of the Trump administration's recent attacks against the news media.
Federal prosecutors told a judge last month that they were considering treating The New York Times as a conspirator in a criminal case accusing James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, of leaking sensitive national security information.
The assertion, which came during a closed-door hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, raised extraordinary First Amendment concerns and would, if pursued, mark a major escalation of the Trump administration's recent attacks against news organizations. It also reflected the White House's relentless efforts to go after Mr. Comey, who was removed as the F.B.I. director by President Trump in 2017.
During the sealed hearing on Oct. 9, a prosecutor working on the case, Dustin Farahnak, told Judge Trevor N. McFadden that the department had weighed treating The Times as a criminal co-conspirator with Mr. Comey in publishing an article concerning a novel use of a surveillance technique, according to a transcript of the proceeding made public this weekend.
The proceeding stemmed from a case filed against Mr. Comey on Oct. 5 in which prosecutors accused him of making an unauthorized disclosure to The Times of national security information for the article. The article appeared in The Times exactly a decade before the charges were brought in order to fall within the 10-year statute of limitations.
Mr. Comey's lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the charges in the leak case, arguing that prosecutors failed to bring it within the statute of limitations. In an unusual procedural move, prosecutors filed the charges without the approval of a judge or a grand jury through a document known as an information, hoping that doing so would comply with the statute of limitations.
The department's consideration of treating The Times as a conspirator appeared to be an attempt to connect the Oct. 5, 2016, article with subsequent coverage by The Times involving Mr. Comey in a way that they contend could extend the statute of limitations. In conspiracy cases, the statute of limitations is based on the last purported act of the criminal scheme.
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