Comey To Argue That ‘8647’ Charges of Threatening Trump Are ‘Vindictive’ and Should Be Dismissed

The former director of the FBI, James Comey, has a deadline of July 28 to file any pre-trial motions to dismiss the criminal threat case levied against him by President Trump’s Department of Justice. It is this administration’s second effort to prosecute Mr. Comey for sharing on social media a beach art installation and the potentially threatening message, “8647.” The July date was set last month after Mr. Comey secured a delay in the proceedings, a scheduling change that was not opposed by the Justice Department. This new timetable sets Mr. Comey’s arraignment for October. He has already indicated that he will plead “not guilty.” If he fails to secure the case’s dismissal this summer, a trial on two charges of threatening Mr. Trump will follow sometime in the fall.Mr. Comey’s preference would be to repeat the success he enjoyed during his first criminal prosecution, when charges of lying to Congress were dismissed in November after the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was disqualified. While that script will not be repeated — the U.S. attorney in this case, Ellis Boyle, unlike Ms. Halligan, has been confirmed by the Senate — Mr. Comey is likely to claim that this case, like the previous one, is fatally flawed.Mr. Comey will not have to make those arguments from scratch. He briefed the court in his perjury case on his argument that those charges, which turned on testimony he delivered to Congress in 2020 about the 2016 investigation into Russian interference, were “selective and vindictive.” If that claim had been accepted by the presiding judge, Cameron McGowan Currie, automatic dismissal would have been warranted. The disqualification of Ms. Halligan, though, means that those briefs are on ice pending appeal.Mr. Comey could repurpose some of the same material in his effort to “86” the charges. That is the number, which has long been slang in restaurant kitchens and bars for “get rid of” or “nix,” that the DOJ alleges amounted to a threat to Mr. Trump’s life. The primary evidence is a photograph posted to Instagram by Mr. Comey of seashells arranged on a beach to create “86 47 formation,” an allusion to dispatching the 47th president. Mr. Comey claims that he did not know what the arrangement meant, and that he quickly deleted it. The New York Times reports that given Mr. Comey’s cooperation during an early stage in the seashells probe, the “Secret Service investigators concluded there was no point in opening a full investigation.” That decision reportedly came after Mr. Comey was surveilled following the post. The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president, answers not to the attorney general — now Todd Blanche in an acting capacity, though Mr. Trump on Monday nominated him for the permanent post — but to the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Comey is likely to point to the Gray Lady’s conclusion that the “seashell case revealed just how badly administration officials wanted to arrest Mr. Comey” as proof that the case is “vindictive.”Mr. Comey will also likely cite the Times’s disclosure that the seashell case was previously considered and dismissed by the erstwhile U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert. Mr. Siebert, who is no longer with the office, demurred from bringing charges and refused to prosecute Mr. Comey in the perjury case or New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, for mortgage fraud. “He didn’t quit, I fired him” is how Mr. Trump put Mr. Siebert’s departure in September of 2025.That departure was precipitated by a statement that is likely to be at the core of Mr. Comey’s motion to dismiss. One day after Mr. Siebert’s departure Mr. Trump posted, in a statement directed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, that “I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.”The question of whether an urging from the president to prosecute is itself sufficient to make a case “vindictive” is one that is likely to be litigated in court. The government has argued in similar circumstances in the past that Mr. Trump’s statements ought to have no bearing on the validity of investigations conducted under the auspices of his DOJ. One important factor that judges look to in order to determine whether to dismiss a prosecution as selective or vindictive is if similarly situated plaintiffs were charged as well. Here Mr. Comey is aided by Mr. Blanche’s acknowledgement in April that other “8647” references will not necessarily be prosecuted. The government is likely to respond to accusations of selectivity by pointing to the wide latitude courts give to prosecutorial discretion — a freedom Mr. Comey once enjoyed when he served as a federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York.

Comey To Argue That ‘8647’ Charges of Threatening Trump Are ‘Vindictive’ and Should Be Dismissed

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