FILE PHOTO: Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2017.
Aaron P. Bernstein | Reuters
Lawyers for James Comey allege the U.S. Secret Service “knowingly conducted illegal electronic surveillance” of the former FBI director at the request of a high-level official on the same day President Donald Trump claimed Comey was threatening “assassination” by posting a photo of seashells on a North Carolina beach forming the numbers “8647,” a new court filing says.
The filing on Tuesday night also says a Secret Service supervisor said the warrantless surveillance of Comey in May 2025 was “legally questionable” but that the agency “might do it anyway.”
And it alleges that the Secret Service conducted the surveillance after the “number three” person at the Department of Justice asked for it. The filing says that the surveillance included keeping tabs on Comey and his wife as they returned to Washington, D.C., from North Carolina, “including as they stopped to visit the grave of their deceased son.”
The filing in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina asks a judge to dismiss, on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution, the indictment issued in April against Comey, which accuses him of threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce with the “8647” photo that he posted on Instagram.
Comey’s lawyers wrote that, “Behind the scenes, the Secret Service was closely coordinating with the DOJ and the President himself.”
“The Secret Service sent frequent updates to Air Force One, in response to direct requests from President Trump who wished for an update in advance of speaking to the press” about Comey’s post on Instagram, the filing says.
And on the same day that the Secret Service conducted illegal electronic surveillance of Comey, the agency “instituted a new policy, effective immediately, to treat the phrase ‘8647’ as coded language for threatening the President.”
“86” is a commonly used term in restaurants by staff to indicate that a certain menu item is no longer available. Trump is the 47th president of the United States.
A Department of Justice spokesperson, when asked about the filing, told MS NOW, “A North Carolina grand jury indicted Comey, and he’ll have his day in court like any other defendant.”
A federal judge in Virginia last year dismissed another indictment against Comey, which accused him of lying to Congress in testimony. The judge in that case found that Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer for Trump, was unlawfully appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, which was prosecuting Comey.
Halligan had obtained that indictment.
