The second indictment of ex-FBI director James Comey, a top target of Donald Trump in his drive for revenge against critics, suggests more charges could be coming against other Trump foes as the US president continues to use the department of justice to settle political scores, ex-prosecutors and law professors said.
Legal critics also see the new indictment by acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, as “embarrassing” and “ridiculous” and revealing Blanche’s desire to quickly appease Trump and persuade him to make his appointment as America’s top justice official permanent.
The new grand jury indictment of Comey came in late April just weeks after Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general in part because she failed to successfully prosecute Comey and other Trump enemies, and tapped Blanche, her deputy at the Department of Justice and a former top Trump criminal defense lawyer, to be acting AG.
Comey had incurred Trump’s wrath in 2016 when as FBI director he investigated Russian efforts to help Trump win his first presidency and then was fired by Trump in May 2017. Comey was first charged last year in a separate case alleging he lied to Congress which a judge threw out on the grounds that White House lawyer and neophyte prosecutor Lindsey Halligan had been improperly appointed on Bondi’s watch.
Ex-prosecutors say the new charges against Comey, which alleged he threatened to kill Trump based on his posting a photo on Instagram in May 2025 of seashells on a beach that read “86-47”, will likely be dismissed by a judge for insufficient evidence or as a “vindictive prosecution.”
“86” most often means removing or banning someone, but it’s also slang for killing a person. Trump is the 47th president. After he received criticism that the phrase could communicate the threat of violence, Comey quickly removed the post and indicated that he intended no harm.
The justice department’s three-page, two count indictment alleges the seashells were “arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47’, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”
Blanche said on May 3 that DOJ has “evidence of all sorts” from an 11 month investigation that it will present at a trial
In response, Comey quickly issued a video statement where he said: “I am still innocent, I am still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go.”
Ex-prosecutors say that the latest charges against Comey are weaker than the earlier ones and signify Blanche’s ambition to quickly meet Trump’s desires
“The descent to the bottom at DoJ has accelerated since Bondi’s departure--an apparent casualty of Blanche’s ambition,” Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the justice department told the Guardian.
“Under Bondi, the department forfeited its independence and then lost its soul. Now, based on the ‘seashell indictment’ and other events of the last month, DoJ appears to have lost its mind. In more than 40 years of practicing law, I have never seen a weaker indictment.”
Bromwich predicted that the new Comey charges “will fail on multiple grounds both on the law and on the facts – it’s just a matter of which motion to dismiss the judge decides to grant. It should be embarrassing to everyone involved in the decision to bring the case and to pursue it. Apparently, it was even too sketchy for Pam Bondi.”
Bromwich added that “Neither top management in the DoJ nor the FBI seem to believe that the 1st Amendment is the law of the land.”
Similarly, ex-US attorney for eastern Michigan, Barbara McQuade, who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, told the Guardian: “The Comey indictment is ridiculous. No unanimous jury of 12 people will find that sharing a picture of seashells arranged in the shape of 86 47 meets the legal standard of a true threat, defined as a serious expression conveying an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence.”
McQuade stressed: “If Bondi was fired for failing to deliver on Trump’s demand for retribution, then Blanche appears determined to avoid the same mistake.”
McQuade’s point has been underscored by how Blanche moved quickly to rev up a wide ranging conspiracy case against other Trump enemies including John Brennan, the ex-CIA director who, like Comey, had made Trump’s enemies list during the first Trump administration for probing how Russia supported Trump’s 2016 campaign
An investigation of Brennan and other Trump foes whom DOJ has been investigating as part of a multi-year “grand conspiracy” against Trump is now being overseen by Joe DiGenova, an 81-year-old former Trump election lawyer who pushed conspiracies about 2020 election fraud, and was recruited in April to expedite charges.
On 20 April, the day he was sworn in, DiGenova appeared on WBAL Radio and said Trump “personally asked” him to lead what he dubbed “the Russia hoax investigation”.
DiGenova then sketched a grand conspiracy: he noted “the historical significance (of) what in 2016, 2020 and 2024, where it’s very evident…that there was a very brazen plot against a private citizen, and then a president, and then a post-president, and then a sitting president again, Donald Trump, to deny him his civil rights.”
According to a lengthy Lawfare analysis on April 27, DiGenova’s statements are “only the latest in a litany of accusations diGenova has lodged against the president’s perceived enemies over the years. The volume and, indeed, the vitriol of his grievances cast real doubt on his ability to act as an independent or impartial prosecutor in the Grand Conspiracy case or any related matter.”
Former prosecutors voice similar concerns.
“The administration’s recent efforts to weaponize the criminal justice system have gone into overdrive,” said ex-DoJ prosecutor, James Pearce, who is a senior counsel at the Washington LItigation Group, stressing that DiGenova “…has made deeply improper public statements about individuals he is investigating…”
To make way for DiGenova’s new role, DoJ removed the veteran Miami prosecutor Maria Medetis Long, who was leading the Brennan inquiry, reportedly because she balked at pressures to quickly charge Brennan over alleged lying to Congress.
Addressing the removal of Long by Blanche, Stacey Young, the executive director of Justice Connection, deplored the growing pressures on prosecutors to bring charges regardless of the evidence’s strength.
“Until this administration, prosecutors were expected to drop a case when an investigation revealed no crime occurred. Now, if they refuse to pursue charges against a perceived enemy of this President, they’re pushed aside and replaced with loyalists who will stretch the facts and the law to manufacture a case.”
Other recent DoJ moves since Blanche became acting AG are raising red flags with critics who say he’s bent on pleasing Trump with charges and lawsuits against various political foes regardless of whether evidence merits legal actions.
Among other weak cases, critics cite Blanche allegations that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a veteran Alabama nonprofit focused on dismantling white supremacy, had defrauded donors by using their funds to pay informants inside white supremacist groups.
The SPLC pleaded not guilty on May 7 to charges that it conspired to launder money and committed fraud.“
Ex-prosecutors say that the public evidence so far in a 14-page indictment, doesn’t reveal that the SPLC intentionally defrauded donors.
Amy Markopoulos, an ex-federal prosecutor who served in the DoJ’s fraud section for years, told USA Today that “Paying informants to then dismantle the organization seems like something that people would expect to be one of the tactics that are used, so that seems like a very weak case to me.”
In McQuade’s eyes, the SPLC charges and others pursued by Blanches since he became acting AG are cynical moves and contrary to DoJ policies.
“Blanche seems more interested in scoring points with Trump by filing baseless indictments against the president’s perceived enemies than in securing convictions, even though the strategy violates the DoJ policy to file charges only if the evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction. Even if DoJ cannot convict Trump’s enemies, it can make their lives miserable for a while, and then blame their defeat in court with baseless allegations that the judge was “woke.”
In a similar vein, Fordham law professor and ex-prosecutor Bruce Green told the Guardian the charges against Comey especially stand out as “ a transparently absurd prosecution and I think there will be compelling reasons for a judge to toss the case. It’s a vindictive prosecution.”
Green said that “to serve in this DoJ in the higher ranks you have to be a true believer.”
He added: “There are ongoing investigations that normal DoJ prosecutors wouldn’t bring, It seems clear that this DoJ is doing the president’s bidding and has no qualms about proceeding against people who are on his enemies list whether they did anything wrong or not. “