Lead federal prosecutor in James Comey seashells photo case steps aside

A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case.

Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing.

Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom Eastern District of North Carolina W. Ellis Boyle hired months ago, NBC News has reported. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal challenges.

Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a DOJ employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department, and did not respond to an additional request for comment on Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo is now heading the Comey case. Petracca did not handle a recent interaction with Comey’s defense team, which instead communicated with First Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Aubart.

A two-count indictment was brought late last month and suggested that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells, arranged to spell out “86 47,” as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”

The indictment doesn’t spell out what the numbers mean. The term “86” is widely considered to be restaurant slang for being out of something in the kitchen, and the 47 was thought to be a reference to the 47th president.

It was the second time the Justice Department has tried to indict the former FBI director, a longtime target of Trump’s. The first, over an allegation that Comey lied to Congress five years ago during remote testimony via Zoom, was dismissed by a judge who ruled the federal prosecutor had been improperly appointed.

Trump has said he wants the Justice Department to go after his political enemies; acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has argued that those now targeted by the Justice Department themselves used the law to go after the president.

Some legal experts — including several conservatives who typically defend the Trump administration’s actions — criticized the case and expect it to be dismissed long before it gets to trial.

“As one of his longest and most vocal critics, I would frankly prefer to crawl into one of Comey’s conversant shells than write this column,” wrote scholar Jonathan Turley. “However, here we are. This indictment is unconstitutional and will not likely survive constitutional challenge.”

After the indictment was announced, Trump said of Comey: “Comey is a dirty cop. He’s a very dirty cop. He’s a crooked man.”

Comey’s attorney has said he was going to file a motion arguing the case was a vindictive prosecution.

There are scores of T-shirts, hats, buttons, bumper stickers and posters for sale that read “8647,” including some that are made with seashells.

Blanche said on “CBS Mornings” that he had “no idea whether there was an investigation into the other times that that post has been made and whether that investigation yielded different results.”

“This investigation that we undertook resulted in a two-count indictment,” he said.

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