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 instructed 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 primarily based on a good-faith software of the regulation to the info; as an alternative, 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 have to be forged apart “underneath two bedrock authorized doctrines,” they stated: that the case was instigated primarily based on Comey’s protected speech and that the federal government engaged in selective prosecution.
“Dismissal of federal felony expenses underneath 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 ought to be tossed as a result of Comey’s Instagram submit 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 approved to debate the case beforehand instructed NBC Information that the case was a “full loser” and a “waste of sources” and predicted that it could be tossed earlier than trial. “No affordable particular person might consider that Comey meant to threaten the president through seashells,” the particular person stated. “Everybody at this DOJ ought to be ashamed. I do know I’m.”
U.S. District Decide Louise Flanagan is overseeing the case. If the case survives to trial, Comey could 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 underneath the U.S. lawyer for the Jap District of North Carolina, W. Ellis Boyle, a Trump administration appointee, however he dropped off the case in late Could.
In considered one of their motions, Comey’s legal professionals word that Petracca turned an precise assistant U.S. lawyer on April 26, simply two days earlier than the Comey case was introduced.
“We word that Mr. Petracca was always skilled in his interplay with the protection staff,” Comey’s attorneys wrote. “We solely word 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 listing of statements that Trump made about Comey from Could 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 an alternative discovering your entire case was invalid as a result of Halligan couldn’t legally maintain the place she claimed.
