The Justice Department filed a court document on August 19, 2026, attempting to distance Attorney General Todd Blanche from the decision to criminally charge former FBI Director James Comey over a social media post, according to filings in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The government argued that U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle, who leads the federal prosecutor’s office in North Carolina, independently made the decision to indict Comey without direction from Blanche or President Trump. “No one ordered or even suggested that Boyle pursue the ongoing investigation or seek an indictment,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Boyle formally notified Blanche of the charging decision only one day before presenting the case to the grand jury, prosecutors stated, and did so to ensure the attorney general would be aware of potential publicity—a step required by Justice Department manual instructions. Despite this late notification, Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel both gave public remarks supporting Boyle’s decision on the day the indictment was announced in April.
Comey was indicted on April 28, 2026, on two felony counts of threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, carrying maximum prison sentences of up to five years each. The charges stem from a May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey shared a photograph of seashells arranged to spell “8647”—a number that prosecutors say a reasonable person would interpret as a threat, since 86 is slang for getting rid of something and 47 refers to Trump’s presidency.
Comey deleted the post the same day and said he did not realize some people associated the phrase with violence. His lawyers have argued the indictments resulted from selective and vindictive prosecution driven by Trump’s personal animus toward his former FBI director, whom Trump fired during his first term in 2017.
In their filings, prosecutors pushed back against Comey’s claim that political pressure drove the case. They argued that even if Trump had directed the prosecution—which they deny—the president has constitutional authority to direct his subordinates in executive functions. “The Chief Executive directing his subordinates to exercise core Executive functions is a feature, not a bug, of our constitutional system,” prosecutors wrote.
The distancing effort comes as Blanche, who was confirmed as attorney general in a narrow 50-49 Senate vote on August 8, 2026, faces scrutiny over his record overseeing investigations into Trump’s political opponents. As deputy attorney general and acting attorney general earlier this year, Blanche had overseen the Comey prosecution and publicly announced the indictment alongside Boyle and Patel. The timing of the case—Boyle assumed his position in August 2025, and the indictment came less than a month after Blanche became acting attorney general in April 2026—has drawn criticism from those questioning the independence of the Justice Department under Trump.
This is the second time Comey has faced federal charges under the Trump administration. A previous indictment alleging he lied to Congress was dismissed by a federal judge in November 2025 after court proceedings revealed issues with the Virginia-based U.S. attorney’s approach. Comey has argued that both cases reflect a weaponized Justice Department bent to the president’s political wishes, and his legal team is seeking dismissal of the current charges on grounds of selective prosecution and violation of his First Amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan is expected to rule on Comey’s motions to dismiss before his scheduled arraignment on September 30, 2026, according to prosecutors’ filings.
Sources
- CNN — DOJ court filing distancing Blanche from Comey indictment decision, Ellis Boyle’s independent role, and Blanche’s late notification of the charging decision
- Raleigh News & Observer — Ellis Boyle’s affidavit denying pressure to prosecute Comey, details of the seashell post and charges, and timeline of the case
- NBC News — April 28, 2026 indictment details and charges against Comey
- PBS NewsHour — Background on Comey’s indictment and the two-count charges
- Justice Department official press release — Federal grand jury indictment of Comey on threatening the president charges
