Hunch. The Justice Department said it filed the charge itself to buy more time to get a grand jury indictment.
The grand jury market resolves YES if by 23:59 US Eastern time on 31 December 2026 a federal grand jury has charged James Comey over the leak named in the charge of 5 October 2026, on the court docket or in a new case in Washington, or as reported by the Justice Department, The Guardian, BBC News or The Independent; no such charge, including a refusal by the grand jury, is NO. The docket settles it, confirmed by The Guardian or BBC News.
We looked for cases where a US prosecutor filed a charge alone, without a grand jury, before the legal time limit ran out, and the person charged asked a federal judge to throw it out. We found nine such rulings from 1997 to 2023. Judges refused six times and threw out the charge three times. Four of the nine came from one court in southern Florida.