Former FBI director James Comey’s defense on Tuesday detailed the “bizarre aspects of the federal investigation” related to his alleged threat against President Donald Trump, Politico reports.
Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury in April over a May 2025 photo on Instagram that spelled out “86-47” in seashells.
According to Comey’s filing, one such bizarre aspect included law enforcement tracking Comey “via his cellphone” as he made the drive from “North Carolina to northern Virginia shortly after” making the Instagram post.
As Politico reports, “Such ‘exigency’ tracking, which takes place without a warrant, requires law enforcement to claim that there’s ’an imminent threat to life or limb,’ a Secret Service official wrote, according to Comey’s legal team.”
According to the filing, one anonymous official said in a message that law enforcement “did not believe that anyone’s life was in immediate danger and legally it was a bad idea to ping the phone.”
Comey’s attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, argued the charges against the former FBI director should be dismissed “on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution,” CBS News reports. The motion was also “accompanied by a 76-page-long spreadsheet listing out all of the insults Trump and Comey have hurled at each other over the last nine years.”
The motion also calls out the government’s “illegal electronic surveillance of Comey at the request of a high-level DOJ official.”
The defense attributed the details about law enforcement’s surveillance of Comey to “substantial discovery provided by the Government.”
Comey’s Tuesday filing follows a separate motion Monday that argued the Instagram post constitutes free speech and a photo depicting “86-47” can’t be considered a “true threat,” according to the report.