(CNN) — Federal officials, apparently acting without a warrant, tracked former FBI Director James Comey from North Carolina to Virginia after he posted photos of seashells spelling out “86 47” last year, Comey’s attorneys allege.
Newly released federal court filings also outline how President Donald Trump was following the investigation into his longtime critic from Air Force One, how investigators interviewed Gambino crime family member “Sammy the Bull,” as well as searches of “86” in FBI databases, ChatGPT and Merriam Webster dictionary online in their effort to build a case against Comey.
The defense’s filing is part of Comey’s effort to have the case dismissed on several grounds, including selective and vindictive prosecution, and that the photo of shells does not represent a true threat, falling well within First Amendment protections.
According to a Secret Service email at the time, Comey was interviwed by phone the day he posted the photo in May 2025. During the call, Comey agreed to travel back from North Carolina to the DC area for a second interview.
A special agent in charge at the Secret Service had asked agents if it was possible to track Comey’s phone, according to the email, but the agent said it was a “bad idea” because they would need to “declare an exigency exemption.”
“We needed to believe that there is an imminent threat to life or limb,” the agent’s email from the day after Comey posted the seashell photos 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 special agent said he understood tracking the phone was “legally questionable” but noted “we might anyway,” according to the filing.
Regardless of the concern, and following pressure from the Justice Department, the Secret Service issued an emergency request to Verizon to track Comey, noting it related 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 filings, Secret Service agents had also begun physically surveilling Comey at the time.
Comey’s phone was tracked as he and his wife drove north in I-95, but agents lost contact when the Comeys stopped to visit the cemetery where their son is buried, his attorneys say.
According to the filings, Trump wanted a copy of the agent’s notes over the first interview with Comey, specifically so he had them for a press conference later that day. One agent messaged that Comey’s post and investigation “is a hot topic” on Air Force One and noted that Trump “is very interested.”
Old mobsters and database searches
The filings also reveal for the first time witnesses the Justice Department used to build their case and convince judges to allow searches of Comey and his wife’s digital footprint. Those witnesses included a person who knew Comey’s wife and an ex-mobster.
Nearly a week later, FBI agents interviewed an unnamed person who had contacted Comey’s wife at the time the photo was posted, telling her the photo was considered by some as a call to violence against Trump.
The unnamed individual was interviewed by Secret Service agents around the time the photo was posted last year. The person said they had not spoken to Comey in two or three years and said they wished they had “something more” to tell the agents so Comey and family members would “face consequences for this.”
The unnamed person also said that Comey likely knew the term 86 – which often refers to getting rid of something or tossing something out – was used by mobsters Comey has previously prosecuted, a theory they had picked up on from Rudy Guiliani and his podcast.
Weeks before they would indict Comey for allegedly threatening the president through the post, FBI agents again interviewed the unnamed person and started to comb through old files from Comey’s time as a young prosecutor working the case against infamous mobster John Gambino.
The Tuesday night filings from Comey’s attorneys say there are no references to the term “86.”
FBI agents also interviewed Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, a cooperating witness and former underboss for the Gambinos from the decades-old case, who said that Comey must know “86” related to killing someone.
Agents also interviewed two retired FBI agents who had worked against organized crime in New York. Both former agents said the term was not used, as far as they recalled, to refer to killing someone, the filings from Comey’s attorneys says.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
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