Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday over a photograph of seashells officers mentioned threatened President Donald Trump, marking the administration’s second try and prosecute one in every of his greatest political opponents, three sources first informed NCS.
The costs, accredited by a grand jury within the Eastern District of North Carolina the place Comey allegedly took the photograph, embrace making a risk against the president and transmitting a risk in interstate commerce, in response to courtroom paperwork.
Comey responded to the indictment Tuesday in a video posted to his Substack account.
“I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid,” Comey mentioned. “And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go.”
Comey is anticipated to self-surrender on Wednesday to regulation enforcement at federal courtroom within the Eastern District of Virginia, in response to a federal official acquainted.
The new case represents a reinvigorated effort to fulfill Trump’s calls for to analyze his personal foes, together with Comey, who he sees as a key chief within the perceived effort to “weaponize” the justice system against him.
It additionally comes lower than a month after the president dismissed Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump had for weeks complained that Bondi was not aggressive sufficient in executing his agenda.
Todd Blanche, Bondi’s prime deputy and a former Trump private legal professional, is now in command of steering the division, and has moved rapidly to behave on issues that the president has publicly pushed for.
“While this case is unique, and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate” Blanche mentioned at a press convention Tuesday.
Tuesday’s indictment is centered on an image Comey posted on social media final May, of shells on a seaside writing out the numbers “86 47.” He wrote within the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
Almost instantly following his publish, Republicans and administration officers went full bore of their criticism of Comey for what they mentioned amounted to a demise risk.
When used as slang, the quantity 86 can discuss with eliminating or tossing one thing out. Trump is presently the forty seventh president.
James Comey responds to new DOJ indictment
Then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem introduced Comey can be investigated by the Secret Service over what she mentioned was a name “for the assassination” of Trump. The former FBI director sat for an hours-long interview with brokers in Washington, DC — an unusual step by the company over a non-specific risk — and investigators he noticed the shells on a seaside in North Carolina.
Court information point out that an arrest warrant was issued for Comey, however that doesn’t all the time point out an arrest is imminent.
Supreme Court precedent has positioned a excessive bar for convictions in risk circumstances like these, and former prosecutors and First Amendment students alike had been extremely skeptical the brand new prosecution would achieve success.
“This is not going anywhere. This is clearly not a punishable threat,” Eugene Volokh, a senior fellow on the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who makes a speciality of First Amendment regulation, informed NCS.
The case is more likely to be an uphill battle for prosecutors, as the costs require proof that Comey “knowingly and willfully” made a risk to “take the life of” the president.
But Comey eliminated the publish the identical day, writing on social media that he assumed the shells represented “a political message” however “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.”
“It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he wrote.
The case against Comey is the second effort by Trump’s Justice Department to convict the previous director, who turned a staunch critic of the president following his firing by Trump in 2017 over the Russia-meddling investigation.
In September of final 12 months, the Justice Department first introduced costs against Comey, accusing him of mendacity to Congress over leaks to the press. The case was dismissed late final 12 months by a federal decide who discovered that the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia had been improperly appointed, having skirted approval from the Senate.
The sample of a number of indictments against Comey is one in every of a number of points his protection attorneys may elevate to the decide in his case in motions to dismiss that, if profitable, would forestall the case from ever seeing a jury. In the earlier case, Comey argued that the indictment must be tossed as a result of he was being selectively and vindictively prosecuted, however that movement was not in the end determined.
Comey’s attorneys declined to remark for this story.
In the present prosecution, his protection attorneys may additionally problem the indictment on First Amendment grounds. Whether the social media publish amounted to a “true threat” is a query courts can evaluate independently, earlier than juries get the possibility, Volokh mentioned.
To show the crime, prosecutors would want to point out there was clear that means to the assertion and that might be the clear that means a recipient would really feel, in response to Mary Anne Franks, a George Washington University Law professor.
Comey’s social media publish is “a very ambiguous statement at best,” she mentioned.
Additionally, prosecutors would face an intent requirement. Under latest Supreme Court precedent they must present that Comey was conscious that his message may make the recipient fearful and that he callously disregaded the danger it will be perceived that manner.
An image of seashells spelling 86 is unlikely to fulfill that bar, given the varied meanings the time period has, mentioned Michael Moore, who served as US Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia Under President Barack Obama.
“This is not (Comey) saying, ‘I am going to kill him,’” Moore informed NCS.
Separately, earlier Tuesday, a decide allowed a lawsuit brought by Comey’s daughter Maurene, a former high-profile New York federal prosecutor difficult her firing from the Justice Department, to maneuver ahead in federal courtroom.
Maurene Comey alleges she was fired as retribution as a result of she is the daughter of the previous FBI director. She is in search of again pay and to have her authorized charges paid.
She labored on a number of the most distinguished prosecutions by the US legal professional’s workplace for the Southern District of New York, together with the prosecution of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jeffrey Epstein and his confederate Ghislaine Maxwell, and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.
On July 16, two weeks after a jury convicted Combs of two counts of transportation to interact in prostitution, Maurene Comey obtained an e mail from Washington informing her she was fired “pursuant to Article II” of the US Constitution.
Moss talks on the indictment of Comey
Comey’s indictment comes as Blanche has picked up the tempo in bringing circumstances that the president has publicly jockeyed for.
In his first week in workplace, Blanche oversaw the discharge of the Weaponization Working Group’s first report — one which alleged the Biden Justice Department was biased in the way it went after abortion protesters. The division fired 4 prosecutors who labored on the circumstances.
He has made adjustments to the prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan – one of the necessary circumstances to the president.
And on Tuesday, the Justice Department has been taking steps which are more likely to please Trump.
The DOJ is planning to subpoena Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ bodyguards, in response to an individual accustomed to the investigation. Willis prosecuted Trump and lots of others over their efforts to alter the outcomes of the 2020 election.
The Justice Department additionally charged a former senior official on the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with concealing information throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans have lengthy gone after officers who led the pandemic response over failures, actual and perceived, and earlier than leaving workplace, President Joe Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci – the largest goal of all.
The story has been up to date with further info.
NCS’s Kara Scannell contributed to this report.