{"id":1149,"date":"2026-07-31T10:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2026-07-31T10:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:37:13","slug":"the-outlandish-case-against-james-comey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1149","title":{"rendered":"The Outlandish Case Against James Comey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Of all the prosecutions of Donald Trump\u2019s enemies, the case against James Comey has always stood out for its tragicomic excess. The story begins in May of 2025, when Comey, vacationing on a North Carolina beach, posted a photo on Instagram of seashells arranged to read \u201c86 47.\u201d The former F.B.I. director\u2019s caption described this as a \u201ccool shell formation\u201d; the Secret Service treated it as an actionable threat against Donald Trump, the forty-seventh President\u2014\u201c86\u201d supposedly being organized-crime slang for killing and not, as most others understood it, a term used in restaurants for an item that has been taken off the menu.<\/p>\n

Read more How to Survive an Infestation of Toxic Caterpillars<\/a><\/p>\n

Comey took down the photograph and agreed to an interview with Secret Service agents the next day, but the agency took the remarkable step of tailing Comey and his wife as they drove home to Virginia. At one point, agents lost track of their car, after the Comeys turned off the highway to visit the gravesite of their son, who had died in infancy three decades earlier. The interrupted surveillance wasn\u2019t a problem for the Secret Service, however, as a tranche of documents filed in federal court this week by Comey\u2019s lawyers show. In an extraordinary, and legally dubious, move, a senior Justice Department official had directed the Secret Service to obtain emergency electronic tracing of Comey\u2019s cellphone\u2014a measure that requires evidence of \u201cimminent threat to life.\u201d In a review of the episode, one Secret Service official wrote, \u201cI suggested that pinging the cell phone is legally questionable.\u201d A more senior official agreed, the official continued, \u201cbut said we might anyway.\u201d Another official, who led the questioning of Comey later that day, concluded, in an e-mail to colleagues, \u201cThis incident will constitute a story that we will be telling the rest of our careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eleven months later, Comey was charged with having \u201cknowingly and willfully\u201d made \u201ca threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States.\u201d A \u201creasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances,\u201d the indictment alleged, would understand the seashell photo \u201cas a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.\u201d This is not a case any normal prosecutor would bring under any normal circumstances. The sole signatory on the indictment, Matthew Petracca, a former state Medicaid-fraud lawyer, had been appointed as an Assistant U.S. Attorney just two days earlier. But Trump has been after Comey for the better part of a decade, since firing him as F.B.I. director, in May, 2017, assailing him as \u201ca proven LEAKER & LIAR,\u201d \u201ca weak and untruthful slime ball,\u201d and a \u201cdirty cop.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the new court documents, Comey\u2019s lawyers argue that the indictment should be dismissed for two reasons: that the First Amendment permits punishment only for making \u201ctrue threats,\u201d not merely repeating \u201ca well-known political slogan\u201d; and that the Constitution bars selective and vindictive prosecution. If Comey has broken the law, so, it seems, have many others. During Joe Biden\u2019s Presidency, the conservative influencer Jack Posobiec tweeted, \u201c86 46.\u201d In 2024, then Representative Matt Gaetz\u2014whom Trump nominated for Attorney General\u2014wrote, after various Republicans were removed from leadership positions, \u201cWe\u2019ve now 86\u2019d: McCarthy McDaniel McConnell.\u201d In fact, as the acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has acknowledged, the term \u201c86 47\u201d is \u201cposted constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the strength of their legal arguments, the new documents offer a glimpse into the Trump Administration\u2019s frantic efforts to gin up a case against Comey. After questioning Comey and his wife, the Secret Service backed away from opening a full investigation. Federal prosecutors in Virginia were also reluctant to pursue the seashell case\u2014although they did bring a separate, and nearly as questionable, perjury prosecution against Comey. (It was later dismissed because Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. Attorney who oversaw the case, had not been legally appointed.) Federal prosecutors in North Carolina stepped in, and turned to the F.B.I., which obliged with a full-scale investigation. That pursuit ramped up, the documents show, after Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi in April for, among other things, failing to punish his political enemies with sufficient vigor. In May, shortly after Comey\u2019s indictment, Blanche\u2014by then the acting Attorney General and angling to get the top spot on a permanent basis\u2014contended that the government had more to go on than the single photo. \u201cRest assured, it\u2019s not just the Instagram post that leads someone to get indicted,\u201d Blanche asserted.<\/p>\n

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If that evidence exists, it has yet to appear. Instead, the documents depict how investigators, seemingly desperate to show that Comey, as a former organized-crime prosecutor, would have understood \u201c86\u201d to mean \u201ckill\u201d or \u201cmurder,\u201d scoured the F.B.I.\u2019s database for evidence of the term being used that way. \u201cThese searches,\u201d they reported, \u201cproduced inconclusive results.\u201d Agents studied the 1993 federal case against the Mob boss John Gambino, in which Comey had been the lead prosecutor; they could find no references to the term \u201c86,\u201d including in one transcript they hurriedly searched the night before Comey\u2019s indictment. They questioned two retired F.B.I. agents who had specialized in organized-crime cases; neither expressed familiarity with the term in that context. Google AI and ChatGPT, queried at the direction of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina after the indictment was issued, were similarly unhelpful. Only Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano\u2014a former underboss for the Gambino crime family who was one of Comey\u2019s co\u00f6perating witnesses\u2014said \u201c86\u201d was a Mob term for \u201cget rid of,\u201d and he didn\u2019t recall discussing the phrase with Comey. Gravano directed agents to a former prosecutor and retired federal judge, John Gleeson\u2014who not only could not confirm Gravano\u2019s statement but went on to provide an affidavit to Comey\u2019s team. \u201cThe claim that \u201886\u2019 is mafia jargon for \u2018kill\u2019 is preposterous,\u201d Gleeson wrote. \u201cIf it weren\u2019t made in the context of seeking to deprive a man of his liberty, it would be laughable.\u201d (Actual mobsters, Gleeson noted, favor terms like \u201cwhack\u201d and \u201cclip.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The filings also show the Administration, the White House, and Trump himself keeping unusually close tabs on the investigation. Comey\u2019s initial interview at the Secret Service\u2019s Washington field office, in May, 2025, was attended by the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, the general counsel and deputy chief counsel for the Secret Service, and a federal prosecutor from the Eastern District of Virginia\u2014hardly the ordinary cohort. Meanwhile, Trump, who was travelling in the Middle East, insistently sought updates on the inquiry. \u201cIt is a hot topic on the plane and [redacted code name for President Trump] is very interested,\u201d John Bush, the special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division, wrote in one e-mail. He followed up, seeking further information: \u201cThe COS just asked me,\u201d Bush wrote, referring to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Another agent advised, \u201cPOTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes.\u201d That evening, Trump, speaking to Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier, said of Comey, \u201cHe knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. that meant assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it happened, when Comey\u2019s lawyers filed their papers, Blanche\u2019s nomination for Attorney General was heading toward an uncertain conclusion in the Senate. Two Republican senators\u2014both departing the chamber after this year\u2014have demanded more limits on the controversial, and supposedly abandoned, $1.8-billion anti-weaponization fund and the I.R.S. audit immunity that Blanche had arranged on Trump\u2019s behalf. The senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, did not cite Blanche\u2019s role in overseeing the Comey prosecution as a reason for their concern. But, as the new documents show, that embarrassing episode constitutes separate, and sufficient, grounds for opposing Blanche\u2019s confirmation.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

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Ruth Marcus on the tragicomic excess of the Trump Administration\u2019s prosecution of the former F.B.I. director James Comey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-lede"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Outlandish Case Against James Comey - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1149\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Outlandish Case Against James Comey - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ruth Marcus on the tragicomic excess of the Trump Administration\u2019s prosecution of the former F.B.I. director James Comey.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1149\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T10:37:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"headline\":\"The Outlandish Case Against James Comey\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T10:37:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149\"},\"wordCount\":1344,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/0edeff13a727c973e3a30c4af6712ddd.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"The Lede\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=1149\",\"name\":\"The Outlandish Case Against James Comey - 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