Former FBI Director James Comey alleged in new court filings that President Donald Trump personally sought notes from an investigation into his social media post of an image of seashells on a beach, and that the Secret Service illegally surveilled him.
Comey made the allegations as he fights to get criminal charges that his post was an illegal threat to harm or kill the president thrown out. The seashells were shaped to spell out "86 47." "86" is a slang term that means "to throw out" or "to get rid of," according to Merriam-Webster. Trump is the 47th U.S. president.
The case has drawn condemnation from free speech advocates, and even some conservative legal voices have denounced the charges as a threat to the First Amendment. Now, Comey is placing
many of those objections in writing, asking a court to drop the charges.
"Here, the government has singled out Mr. Comey for prosecution because President Trump harbors animus toward Mr. Comey and his protected speech, and it has done so in direct response to the President’s urgings," Comey said in a July 28 filing to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The Justice Department declined to comment. A DOJ spokesperson previously said Comey would have his day in court, and revealing further details on the case wouldn't be fair to him or the prosecution.
The document was one of several filings Comey made July 28, in which he argued that his constitutional rights are being violated by a vindictive prosecution, that he should get access to records on what led a grand jury to indict him in the first place, and that evidence in the case should be suppressed because it came from misleading search warrant applications.
Earlier in the week, Comey argued in a separate motion that the charges should be dismissed because no one could reasonably interpret his post as a true threat, and the charges unconstitutionally infringe on free speech.
FBI interviewed ex-Gambino mafia member Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano
In one of those filings, Comey said the government submitted sworn affidavits stating that his experience prosecuting organized crime would have made him aware that the term "86" was a call for violence against the president. But by that point, the government's own investigation had shown that wasn't true, and the government omitted that inconvenient evidence from its search warrant applications, Comey said.
Former Gambino crime family hit man Salvatore Gravano, also known as "Sammy the Bull," for instance, told the government he had no memory of discussing the term "86" with Comey when Comey prosecuted a criminal case against mobster John Gambino and other mafia members in the early 1990s, according to Comey. Gravano cooperated with the prosecution in that case.
While Gravano speculated that law enforcement officers would know "86" meant to kill, that was contradicted by former FBI agents and by repeated searches of case and law enforcement records, Comey said.
"[A]ll of those investigations supported Mr. Comey’s assertion that he did not recall ever hearing '86' used to mean 'kill' during his prosecutorial days," Comey said.
Trump sought notes of Comey's Secret Service interview
The filings paint a picture of the investigation into Comey as being driven by the president himself.
One document in the case records states that Trump requested a copy of the notes from a Secret Service interview with Comey that took place soon after the posting, which Trump wanted to use in an upcoming press conference, according to an affidavit filed by Comey's lawyer, former DOJ official Patrick J. Fitzgerald. A Secret Service agent traveling with the president told a supervisor that the Comey interview "is a hot topic on the plane and (Trump) is very interested," Fitzgerald said.
One record in the case also states that Trump had directly requested "a summary of the interview when available," according to the affidavit.
Comey also highlighted in one of his filings Trump's public calls for him to face charges.
In September 2025, Trump posted on social media a message directed specifically to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi saying Comey was "guilty as hell" of an unspecified crime and "JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"
Within days, Bondi had appointed a former personal lawyer of Trump's to a top prosecutorial role, and that lawyer had secured criminal charges alleging Comey lied to Congress. A judge dismissed the charges after concluding that the prosecutor's appointment was unlawful.
In April, Trump fired Bondi and Blanche took over as acting attorney general. Later that month, Blanche's DOJ secured the current indictment tied to the seashells post.
The move appeared to please Trump, who reposted a social media post in May 2026 stating, "We see Comey" and "It's time we get to SEE JUSTICE!"
Later that same month, Trump posted an image on social media of Comey and several other Trump critics wearing prison jumpsuits in mugshots.
Trump nominated Blanche to become the permanent attorney general in early June.
The criminal indictment for the seashells post "is not based on a good-faith application of the law to the facts; instead, it effectuates a yearslong campaign by the President to use the criminal process to punish Mr. Comey," Comey said in the filing, which argued that the case is an unconstitutional, vindictive prosecution.
Comey alleges illegal government surveillance
Comey also alleged in his filings that he and his wife were illegally surveilled as part of the investigation.
In a filing seeking access to the grand jury records, Comey said the government engaged in "illegal electronic surveillance" of him early in its investigation, "following a request for such surveillance by a high-level DOJ official."
In a separate filing asking for evidence to be suppressed, Comey said he and his wife's car was tailed and his phone was "illegally tracked" while they drove from their vacation spot in North Carolina back to their home in Virginia, stopping at the grave of one of their children. The "number three" person at the DOJ requested the tracking, according to the filing.
The government didn't get a warrant or court order to authorize the electronic surveillance, according to Fitzgerald's affidavit. Instead, the Secret Service submitted an emergency request to Verizon, saying the surveillance related to "an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to a person."
The Secret Service made that request after a special agent said it "was a bad idea" because the service "did not believe that anyone's life was in immediate danger," according to the affidavit.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Comey alleges illegal tracking and Trump involvement in seashells case
