(CNN) — The Justice Department said in a court filing that its senior leadership wasn’t involved in the decision to criminally charge former FBI Director James Comey for posting a picture of seashells arranged to say “8647” on social media in 2025.
The picture drew scrutiny as the number 86 often refers to tossing or getting rid of something, and Donald Trump is the 47th president. Prosecutors say the post amounts to a threat on Trump’s life, which Comey has denied.
Distancing Attorney General Todd Blanche from the decision making, the Tuesday night filing says it was Ellis Boyle, the US attorney in Eastern North Carolina, who was behind bringing the indictment against one of Trump’s top foes.
“No one ordered or even suggested that Boyle pursue the ongoing investigation or seek an indictment,” prosecutors wrote in Wednesday’s filing.
In disclosing the approach by Boyle, the Justice Department hopes to convince a judge that Comey wasn’t targeted vindictively by prosecutors because of the president’s animus toward him.
“Comey attempts to portray the decision to charge him as resulting from a directive by the President and/or the Attorney General. That is simply false,” prosecutors wrote in the court filing in the eastern North Carolina federal court on Tuesday. “U.S. Attorney Boyle looked into the matter upon assuming his position and made the decision without any influence from the Attorney General, much less the President, whatsoever.”
Still, the Justice Department says in the filing Boyle told the attorney general that prosecutors would seek the Comey indictment over the seashell post on the day before a grand jury approved it this spring.
“Indeed, Boyle did not even discuss the charging decision with the Attorney General until the day before presenting the matter to the grand jury, and did so then so that the Attorney General would be aware of the possibility of publicity relating to the indictment, as the Justice Manual instructs,” the prosecutors wrote.
Blanche — who was then the Justice Department’s No. 2 leader, as deputy attorney general — and FBI Director Kash Patel publicly supported Boyle charging Comey in North Carolina, with both giving press remarks the day of the indictment in Washington alongside Boyle.
The seashell indictment in April was the second time Comey had been indicted by this Justice Department. A previous case, alleging he lied to Congress, was dismissed by a judge last year after court proceedings unearthed issues with the Virginia-based US attorney’s approach.
Comey has argued that both cases were the result of a Justice Department acting unfairly to bend to the president’s political wishes.
Prosecutors, in Wednesday’s filing, said the previous case in Virginia was dismissed on a “technicality” and not the “substantively unresolved” charges initially brought.
In their attempts to bat away Comey’s argument that Trump has personally called for Comey’s prosecution, attorneys for the Justice Department argued Trump can, essentially, do what he wants.
Even if there was evidence that Trump directed Boyle or Blanche to charge Comey, prosecutors wrote, “the Chief Executive directing his subordinates to exercise core Executive functions is a feature, not a bug, of our constitutional system.”
Prosecutors added that independence between the Justice Department and Trump “is antithetical to the constitutional separation of powers (which lodges the Executive power in the President alone).”
Slang dictionaries and Comey’s book
To support their finding that “there is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump,’” prosecutors cited a slang dictionary, pushing back on Comey’s citation from established dictionaries of the term.
Prosecutors also say that two minutes prior to posting his photo, Comey’s wife sent the former director a screenshot of a definition for “86” as meaning “to get rid of or refuse service” — not murder or kill.
Comey’s fiction book, which was set for release shortly after he originally posted the seashell picture, was also cited at length in Wednesday’s filings.
Prosecutors noted that individuals, including Comey’s agent, were flagging how the seashell post and its subsequent virality would help with book sales.
“Not my intention, but I’ll be OK if it sells books,” Comey allegedly told his agent at the time, according to prosecutors.
In their filings, prosecutors attempt to flip a narrative in Comey’s novel on its head, suggesting Comey was playing the role of a far-right villain in the novel whose calls for “something to be done” about his enemies leads to attacks by his followers.
“On May 15, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey,” prosecutors wrote following an excerpt cited from the novel, “through the wonder of the internet, posted a coded message to his followers meaning ‘kill’ or ‘get rid of’ (a euphemism for ‘kill’) President Trump.”
Prosecutors also highlighted the many threats and attempts on Trump’s life in justifying the investigation into Comey following his seashell post, including from Iran.
“Most recently on July 8, 2026, Iran orchestrated a missile attack against Air Force One in an effort to kill President Trump,” prosecutors wrote in a public admission of a threat CNN and other outlets have reported on.
Those threats, however, do not explain the administration’s extensive efforts to investigate Comey’s social media post.
This story was updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
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