Permitting the seashells-based prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey to maneuver ahead would erode core constitutional rights defending free speech, Comey’s authorized staff advised a federal decide in North Carolina on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, members of Comey’s eight-person authorized staff filed a movement asking a decide to toss the seashells case, saying it’s “not based mostly on a good-faith utility of the regulation to the details; as a substitute, it effectuates a yearslong marketing campaign by the President to make use of the felony course of to punish Mr. Comey for his protected speech and due to the President’s deep-seated animosity.”
The Trump-driven case should be forged apart “below two bedrock authorized doctrines,” they stated: that the case was instigated based mostly on Comey’s protected speech and that the federal government engaged in selective prosecution.
“Dismissal of federal felony fees below these doctrines has traditionally been uncommon. That’s as a result of for many years the DOJ’s independence and integrity have guarded in opposition to using the felony course of to punish enemies or settle political scores,” they wrote. “The prosecutions of Mr. Comey mark a pointy break from that custom.”
Comey’s staff additionally filed a separate movement Tuesday searching for the disclosure of grand jury data within the case, arguing that whereas “grand jury proceedings are usually entitled to a presumption of regularity, the irregularities surrounding the return of the indictment on this case overcome that presumption.”
Comey’s staff had already argued Monday that the seashells case needs to be tossed as a result of Comey’s Instagram put up was not a real menace, arguing that “dictionaries, context, precedent, and customary sense” intestine the Trump administration’s claims concerning the which means of the numbers “8647.”
A Justice Division official who was not licensed to debate the case beforehand advised NBC Information that the case was a “full loser” and a “waste of assets” and predicted that it might be tossed earlier than trial. “No cheap individual might imagine that Comey meant to threaten the president through seashells,” the individual stated. “Everybody at this DOJ needs to be ashamed. I do know I’m.”
U.S. District Choose Louise Flanagan is overseeing the case. If the case survives to trial, Comey can be arraigned Sept. 30, and the trial would happen Oct. 21 in New Bern, North Carolina.
Matthew Petracca, a rookie federal prosecutor and former Republican official in New Jersey, introduced the case below the U.S. lawyer for the Japanese District of North Carolina, W. Ellis Boyle, a Trump administration appointee, however he dropped off the case in late Might.
In considered one of their motions, Comey’s attorneys notice that Petracca grew to become an precise assistant U.S. lawyer on April 26, simply two days earlier than the Comey case was introduced.
“We notice that Mr. Petracca was always skilled in his interplay with the protection staff,” Comey’s attorneys wrote. “We solely notice his restricted expertise in that it’s uncommon in most circumstances for such a high-profile case to be delegated to a junior lawyer.”
Petracca, they write, had a “background in state Medicaid fraud and little federal felony expertise” and has since “withdrawn from the case and transferred to the Civil Division.” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Timothy Severo is now heading the prosecution.
Comey’s staff made an analogous argument of vindictiveness and selective prosecution after former White Home aide Lindsey Halligan introduced a case in opposition to him over testimony he gave in 2020. Included in that submitting was a 60-page checklist of statements that Trump made about Comey from Might 2017 to the autumn of 2025.
However a decide by no means dominated on the arguments of vindictiveness and selective prosecution in that case, as a substitute discovering the whole case was invalid as a result of Halligan couldn’t legally maintain the place she claimed.
