A fresh indictment against former FBI director James Comey has set off new alarms among legal experts that the Trump administration is weaponizing federal prosecutors to settle political scores, with some warning that more charges against the president's critics are likely to follow.
The case, brought by acting attorney general Todd Blanche in late April, centers on an Instagram post Comey shared in May 2025 showing seashells arranged to form "86-47." Prosecutors claim the image constitutes a serious threat against Trump, the 47th president. Comey removed the post after pushback and stated he intended no harm.
Former prosecutors and law professors are openly skeptical. The indictment's allegations strain legal precedent for what constitutes a genuine threat, critics say. Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Justice Department, called it the "weaker" of two prosecutions against Comey and described it as "the 'seashell indictment.'" He predicted the case will "fail on multiple grounds both on the law and on the facts."
"In more than 40 years of practicing law, I have never seen a weaker indictment," Bromwich told the Guardian. He added that the charges "should be embarrassing to everyone involved in the decision to bring the case."
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney now teaching law at the University of Michigan, was blunt. "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."
The timing matters. Comey faces these charges weeks after Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general, reportedly in part because she had failed to successfully prosecute Comey and other Trump enemies. Blanche, her former deputy and a onetime Trump defense lawyer, replaced her.
Legal experts say Blanche's willingness to move forward with a weak case signals ambition to prove loyalty. McQuade said bluntly: "If Bondi was fired for failing to deliver on Trump's demand for retribution, then Blanche appears determined to avoid the same mistake."
The Comey indictment is just one piece of a broader pattern. Blanche has also pushed a sprawling conspiracy case against other Trump critics, including former CIA director John Brennan. To oversee that probe, the Justice Department brought in Joe DiGenova, an 81-year-old former Trump election lawyer who has promoted baseless claims about 2020 election fraud.
On his first day as an investigator in April, DiGenova told radio station WBAL that Trump "personally asked" him to lead what he called "the Russia hoax investigation." He then sketched a sweeping narrative of a plot against Trump spanning 2016, 2020, and 2024.
That public commentary has alarmed critics. A Lawfare analysis noted that DiGenova's "volume and, indeed, the vitriol of his grievances cast real doubt on his ability to act as an independent or impartial prosecutor."
To make room for DiGenova's role, the Justice Department removed Maria Medetis Long, a veteran Miami prosecutor who had been leading the Brennan inquiry. Sources say Long resisted pressure to bring charges quickly based on weak evidence.
The Comey and Brennan cases are not isolated. Blanche's office has also indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit focused on dismantling white supremacy, accusing it of defrauding donors by using funds to pay informants inside extremist groups. Critics say that charges mischaracterize routine investigative expenses as fraud.
Ex-federal prosecutor Amy Markopoulos 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."
The pattern has sparked concern that the Justice Department is now pursuing indictments not to win convictions but to damage political enemies. McQuade said Blanche "seems more interested in scoring points with Trump by filing baseless indictments against the president's perceived enemies than in securing convictions."
She added that even losing in court serves a purpose. "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.'"
Fordham law professor Bruce Green, a former prosecutor himself, said the Comey case stands out as "a transparently absurd prosecution." He warned that to work in the upper ranks of the current Justice Department, "you have to be a true believer." Normal prosecutors would not pursue investigations like these, Green said. "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."
Author James Rodriguez: "When a Justice Department starts recycling weak cases and swapping out prosecutors who won't play ball, we're watching the machinery of political retaliation crank into high gear."
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