The filing turns a dispute over a deleted Instagram post into a broader fight over selective prosecution, surveillance and how much weight investigators placed on shaky sources.
James Comey’s lawyers allege that Trump officials relied on AI-generated material and a mafia killer-related source in the legal motion challenging the government’s case against James Comey, filed Tuesday in federal court in North Carolina. The motion says law enforcement and the Justice Department strained to justify charging the former FBI director over an Instagram photo of seashells spelling “8647,” which prosecutors treated as a threat against Donald Trump.
The claim is not just that Trump officials turned a political grudge into a criminal case. Comey’s defense is arguing that the way investigators built the case — including AI searches, Secret Service tracking and an interview with former mob underboss Salvatore “Sammy The Bull” Gravano — shows the prosecution should be dismissed.
A threat case under attack
Comey’s lawyers filed the motion to dismiss on grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution, according to the filing described by The Guardian. The Justice Department’s case, filed in April, centers on Comey’s Instagram post of shells arranged to read “8647.”
Prosecutors have treated the post as a threat against Trump, who is serving as the 47th president. Comey has said he did not intend any violent message and deleted the image after being told it could be read that way.
The defense says the prosecution was not a neutral application of threat law. In the motion, Comey’s lawyers argue it reflected Trump’s long-running hostility toward the former FBI director, whom Trump fired during his first term.
That claim raises the stakes beyond one social media post. If a judge accepts the defense theory, the case could become a test of whether a politically explosive prosecution was driven by evidence or by pressure from the top of government.
The fight over “86”
Much of the dispute turns on the meaning of “86.” The term is commonly used to mean removing, canceling or getting rid of something. The government’s case depends on whether Comey used it as a violent threat, or at least knew it would be understood that way.
Comey’s lawyers say investigators struggled to establish that meaning. According to the motion, law enforcement searched records tied to a federal case against mobster John Gambino, which Comey had worked on as a prosecutor, looking for references to “86.” The filing says the search found none.
The FBI also searched broader records going back decades, but the results were inconclusive, the motion says. Agents later interviewed former FBI personnel who had worked mafia cases. They reportedly knew the term, but could not definitively say it was used by the mafia to mean killing someone.
That ambiguity matters because threat cases often turn on context and intent. A phrase can be ugly, reckless or politically charged without meeting the legal threshold for a “true threat.” Comey’s team has also filed a separate motion arguing the post was protected speech.
AI searches and a mob witness
The most striking allegation is that investigators turned to ChatGPT and Google AI while trying to pin down the meaning of “86.” Comey’s lawyers say neither tool gave law enforcement a definitive answer.
Using AI for a general search is not automatically improper. Investigators, lawyers and journalists all use search tools to locate leads. The defense argument is sharper: if AI results were being used to shore up a criminal theory after the indictment, that may suggest the evidence was not solid when the case was brought.
The filing also says officials interviewed Salvatore “Sammy The Bull” Gravano, the former Gambino crime family underboss who became a cooperating witness and has admitted involvement in nearly 20 murders. Gravano had been a witness in a Gambino case Comey prosecuted years earlier.
According to Comey’s lawyers, Gravano told investigators he understood “86” to mean “to get rid of someone,” but did not recall ever discussing the term with Comey. The filing says Gravano interpreted the seashell image as meaning “let’s kill Trump,” while also saying he did not take it to mean Comey personally planned to kill Trump.
Secret Service tracking allegations
The motion also accuses the Secret Service of overreaching. Comey and his wife, Patrice Comey, voluntarily spoke with investigators after the post drew scrutiny, according to the filing.
The defense says internal Secret Service notes show Trump was requesting updates while the investigation was underway. The filing also describes a discussion about whether agents could track Comey’s phone as he traveled from Washington back to North Carolina through an emergency request without a warrant.
One Secret Service supervisor called that a “bad idea,” according to notes attached to the motion. The supervisor reportedly wrote that an exigent request would require belief in an imminent threat to life or limb, and that agents did not believe anyone’s life was in immediate danger at the time.
Comey’s attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a sworn affidavit that Comey’s phone ultimately was tracked and that Comey and his wife were followed on the drive back to North Carolina. Those allegations have not been tested in a ruling, but they are central to the defense claim that the investigation crossed legal lines.
Trump’s history with Comey looms
The defense is leaning heavily on the history between Trump and Comey. Trump has long criticized Comey over the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation during the 2016 election period, and Comey has remained a vocal Trump critic.
Comey’s lawyers argue that this history helps explain why the case was revived after an initial inquiry appeared to be going nowhere. The motion names Todd Blanche and U.S. attorney Ellis Boyle as figures who, in the defense account, helped reinvigorate the investigation.
The government is expected to defend the prosecution as a lawful response to a perceived threat against the president. Presidents receive heightened protection, and law enforcement typically treats even ambiguous possible threats seriously.
That is the competing frame the court will have to weigh: whether federal authorities appropriately investigated a potential danger to Trump, or whether they stretched ambiguous words and shaky sources to punish a longtime adversary.
What the judge must decide
The court does not have to decide whether Comey’s post was wise or whether “8647” was offensive to Trump supporters. The more immediate question is whether the indictment can survive claims that it was vindictive, selective or unsupported by the evidence prosecutors had.
Comey’s team wants dismissal before trial. To win, the defense must persuade the judge that the government’s conduct was legally defective, not merely aggressive or politically embarrassing.
Several facts remain unclear from the public record. The unnamed Justice Department official referenced in the Secret Service notes is not identified in the filing. The government’s full explanation for its investigative choices has not yet been laid out in response to this motion.
For now, the filing puts the government’s methods in the spotlight. The case began with a photo of seashells. It now turns on whether prosecutors can justify a threat charge built amid AI searches, disputed slang, alleged surveillance and the testimony of a former mafia killer.
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