Federal officers, apparently appearing and not using a warrant, tracked former FBI Director James Comey from North Carolina to Virginia after he posted photographs of seashells spelling out “86 47” final yr, Comey’s attorneys allege.
Newly released federal court filings additionally define how President Donald Trump was following the investigation into his longtime critic from Air Force One, how investigators interviewed Gambino crime member of the family “Sammy the Bull,” in addition to searches of “86” in FBI databases, ChatGPT and Merriam Webster dictionary on-line of their effort to construct a case against Comey.
The protection’s submitting is a part of Comey’s effort to have the case dismissed on a number of grounds, together with selective and vindictive prosecution, and that the picture of shells doesn’t symbolize a real risk, falling effectively inside First Amendment protections.
According to a Secret Service email at the time, Comey was interviwed by cellphone the day he posted the picture in May 2025. During the decision, Comey agreed to journey again from North Carolina to the DC space for a second interview.
A particular agent in cost on the Secret Service had requested brokers if it was potential to trace Comey’s cellphone, in accordance with the e-mail, however the agent mentioned it was a “bad idea” as a result of they would wish to “declare an exigency exemption.”
“We needed to believe that there is an imminent threat to life or limb,” the agent’s e mail from the day after Comey posted the seashell photographs reads. “At that time we did not believe that anyone’s life was in immediate danger and legally it was a bad idea to ping the phone.”
The particular agent mentioned he understood monitoring the cellphone was “legally questionable” however famous “we might anyway,” in accordance with the submitting.
Regardless of the priority, and following stress from the Justice Department, the Secret Service issued an emergency request to Verizon to trace Comey, noting it associated to “an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to a person, necessitating disclosure without delay of information relating to that emergency.”
According to the court docket filings, Secret Service brokers had additionally begun bodily surveilling Comey on the time.
Comey’s cellphone was tracked as he and his spouse drove north in I-95, however brokers misplaced contact when the Comeys stopped to go to the cemetery the place their son is buried, his attorneys say.
According to the filings, Trump wanted a copy of the agent’s notes over the primary interview with Comey, particularly so he had them for a press convention later that day. One agent messaged that Comey’s put up and investigation “is a hot topic” on Air Force One and famous that Trump “is very interested.”
Old mobsters and database searches
The filings additionally reveal for the primary time witnesses the Justice Department used to construct their case and persuade judges to permit searches of Comey and his spouse’s digital footprint. Those witnesses included an individual who knew Comey’s spouse and an ex-mobster.
Nearly every week later, FBI brokers interviewed an unnamed one that had contacted Comey’s spouse on the time the picture was posted, telling her the picture was thought-about by some as a name to violence against Trump.
The unnamed particular person was interviewed by Secret Service brokers across the time the picture was posted final yr. The particular person mentioned that they had not spoken to Comey in two or three years and mentioned they wished that they had “something more” to inform the brokers so Comey and relations would “face consequences for this.”
The unnamed particular person additionally mentioned that Comey possible knew the time period 86 – which regularly refers to eliminating one thing or tossing one thing out – was utilized by mobsters Comey has beforehand prosecuted, a principle that they had picked up on from Rudy Guiliani and his podcast.
Weeks earlier than they’d indict Comey for allegedly threatening the president by way of the put up, FBI brokers once more interviewed the unnamed particular person and began to comb by way of previous information from Comey’s time as a younger prosecutor working the case against notorious mobster John Gambino.
The Tuesday evening filings from Comey’s attorneys say there aren’t any references to the time period “86.”
FBI brokers additionally interviewed Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, a cooperating witness and former underboss for the Gambinos from the decades-old case, who mentioned that Comey should know “86” associated to killing somebody.
Agents additionally interviewed two retired FBI brokers who had labored against organized crime in New York. Both former brokers mentioned the time period was not used, so far as they recalled, to seek advice from killing somebody, the filings from Comey’s attorneys says.
NCS’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.