Lead prosecutor leaves DOJ’s case accusing James Comey of threatening Trump by posting “86 47” in seashells

The federal prosecutor who signed an indictment accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Trump by posting an image of seashells arranged as “86 47” is no longer on the case, according to court papers filed late Friday.

Comey — a frequent Trump critic — was charged in North Carolina last month. The indictment has drawn stiff criticism, and Comey’s legal team has signaled that it plans to seek dismissal of the case on the grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution.

Friday’s court filing requests that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, who was listed as the government’s lead lawyer on the Comey case, be removed from the docket. Federal prosecutor Timothy Severo was swapped in.

Petracca has also been taken off at least three other cases since last week, according to court filings, which do not specify why he is stepping aside. 

CBS News has reached out for comment to Petracca and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which is overseeing the Comey case.

NBC News was first to report on Petracca’s departure from the case.

The case against Comey, which is scheduled to go to trial in October, revolves around a May 2025 Instagram post by the former FBI chief that showed seashells forming the numbers “86 47” on a beach. Comey faced intense backlash at the time from Mr. Trump and his allies, who argued the use of the number “86” implied a desire to kill the 47th president. Merriam Webster defines “86” as a slang term that means “throw out” or “get rid of.”

Comey quickly deleted the photo and said he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” writing in a follow-up Instagram post that he spotted the seashells on a beach walk and “assumed [they] were a political message.”

Almost a year later, federal prosecutors in North Carolina secured an indictment on one count of threatening the president’s life and one count of transmitting an interstate threat. Mr. Trump responded on social media by calling Comey a “Dirty Cop.”

Comey has denied all wrongdoing and vowed to fight the charges in court.

The indictment has drawn criticism from many legal experts, who note that the bar for proving a statement is a threat is extraordinarily high and view the charges as an attempt to punish Comey for his political opinions. Comey has been an outspoken Trump antagonist since the president fired him as FBI director in 2017. 

“If you can charge somebody for arranging seashells in the sand with an ambiguous message, if that’s a threat, if that’s criminal speech, then the First Amendment is in serious jeopardy,” Pace University professor and former prosecutor Perry Carbone told CBS News earlier this month.

The charges came seven months after a separate effort by the Justice Department to prosecute Comey for allegedly lying to Congress. That indictment — which Comey’s lawyers also argued was vindictive and selective — was tossed out by a federal judge in Virginia on the grounds the prosecutor who led the case was improperly appointed.

Attorney General Todd Blanche has denied that the North Carolina case was politically motivated, telling CBS News it was spearheaded by “local prosecutors” and “local agents.”

“I don’t even know their names,” Blanche said of the North Carolina-based federal prosecutors.