Post by Chuck

Question for federal criminal law talking people: The latest Comey information charges him with violating 18 USC § 793(d), a broad statute covering mishandling national defense information. Everyone (including Comey's lawyers) seems to believe the statute of limitations here is 10 years. But I can find no exception to the default five year rule for 793. What am I missing?

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.297298/gov.uscourts.dcd.297298.1.0.pdf

(There's a similar offense in 50 USC § 783 with a 10 year limit, but that wasn't charged here).

The answer (mentioned in a motion from Comey) seems to lie somewhere in the Internal Security Act of 1950, which I can't find with a quick search.

This seems to be quite obscure - it escaped the notice of the Congressional Research Service, which didn't include 793 in its list of federal crimes with a 10 year time limit.
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL31253