A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Former FBI Director James Comey is back in court today. For the third time in 13 months, he faces separate criminal charges brought by President Trump's Justice Department. Here's NPR's Carrie Johnson.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Jim Comey delivered the news this week that he had been charged yet again by the Justice Department he once helped lead.
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JAMES COMEY: Well, they're back again. 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.
JOHNSON: Prosecutors accuse Comey of mishandling national security information by authorizing a leak to The New York Times in October 2016. Comey denies those charges.
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COMEY: Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.
JOHNSON: A federal judge dismissed the first set of charges against Comey because the Trump ally who prosecuted him was improperly appointed. He's fighting a separate case in North Carolina that accuses him of making a threat against President Trump after Comey posted a photo of seashells that included the slang number 86 - to get rid of. Experts say this latest case from more than a decade ago may not get very far for a simple reason.
SOL WISENBERG: I will be absolutely astounded if it's not dismissed before trial.
JOHNSON: Sol Wisenberg is a former federal prosecutor, and he says he is no fan of Jim Comey. But Wisenberg paged through the law books and came to this conclusion.
COMEY: Well, it strikes me that the statute of limitations, which is the period in which the government is required to bring a charge, has expired here.
JOHNSON: Prosecutors needed to win a grand jury indictment against Comey by October 5 to make the case stick, but they didn't get it done in time. And grand juries in D.C. have resisted during the Trump era, especially in politically charged cases. That's for good reason, says former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich.
MICHAEL BROMWICH: This Justice Department has really degraded its reputation like no other Justice Department in my memory. And it continues to degrade that reputation by bringing strange cases, unsupported cases, baseless cases.
JOHNSON: The Justice Department is defending its actions and declining further comment, since the Comey case is pending - at least for now.
Carrie Johnson, NPR News.
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