Ex-FBI director Comey's lawyer says government tracked his phone, interviewed mob killer

Comey's lawyers describe prosecutions as rooted in Trump's personal animus

Federal officials involved in the prosecution of former FBI director James Comey misled judges, submitted documents containing false statements and withheld key facts, according to new defence filings.

Lawyers for Comey made the allegations of misconduct in motions filed this week that also call the case a vindictive and selective prosecution, including claims of "unlawful" surveillance of Comey by the Secret Service.

Comey was charged in April with threatening President Donald Trump, who fired him nine years ago, through a photo posted on Instagram of a seashell arrangement of the numbers "86 47" on a North Carolina beach in May 2025.

The Justice Department has said the photo constituted a threat against Trump, the 47th president, because "86" is shorthand for "kill,"and is making its second attempt to prosecute Comey for the alleged offence. Comey deleted the post shortly after he put it up, saying he did not know that anyone interpreted the numbers as a call to violence.

As Comey returned to Washington with his wife within hours of the post to be interviewed by law enforcement, Secret Service agents were directed to conduct "unlawful" electronic surveillance without a warrant, "including as [the Comeys] stopped to visit the grave of their deceased son," his lawyers said.

The request for such exigency tracking, as it is called, came at the behest of a senior Justice Department official, they said.

Comey's lawyers describe the prosecutions as rooted in Trump's personal animus. The Secret Service closely co-ordinated with the Justice Department and with Trump himself about Comey's subsequent interview about the seashells, according to Comey's lawyers. They also claim the president was sent frequent updates on Air Force One and had asked to be briefed.

"Ample objective evidence — much of which comes directly from government officials' own public statements and admissions — establishes that the President's animus toward Mr. Comey led to this vindictive and selective prosecution," Comey's lawyers wrote in one of the filings.

Notorious mob killer interviewed

Defence lawyers said investigators went to extraordinary lengths trying to prove that Comey intended a physical threat, or knew that the number 86 suggested violence, and repeatedly came up empty but withheld that fact from federal magistrates, as they applied for warrants to search the digital accounts associated with Comey and his wife.

An FBI agent also requested a review of the FBI file for the case against reputed mobster John Gambino, which Comey worked on as a young prosecutor, but found no references to the term 86.

Investigators also interviewed a key government co-operator in the case, Salvatore Gravano. Gravano said he did not recall ever discussing the term 86 with Comey or hearing it in connection with the trial.

Now in his 80s, and colloquially known as Sammy (The Bull) Gravano, the former Gambino underboss confessed to his involvement in 19 murders decades ago. Gravano's testimony helped prosecute former crime boss John Gotti, but he eventually returned to prison for several years due to drug trafficking offences unrelated to his Gambino past.

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The FBI also searched an internal database of information about open and closed investigations for any indication of an association between Comey and the term 86, but found inconclusive results.

Rudy Giuliani — the former Trump lawyer embroiled in both the 2019 presidential impeachment involving the president's pressure campaign on Ukraine, as well as false 2020 election fraud claims — said on his radio show that Comey had worked on mob cases as a prosecutor in which mafia members used "86" to mean "kill." But the FBI's own investigation determined Giuliani's claims to be untrue, defence lawyers said.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been previously appointed by president Barack Obama and also serving as a senior Justice Department official in president George W. Bush's administration.

WATCH | The roots of Trump's anger at Comey:Trump fired Comey in May 2017 as the FBI was investigating potential ties between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign, at first falsely claiming that the rationale for Comey's dismissal was missteps in an earlier FBI probe of Trump rival Hillary Clinton.

The Justice Department will have an opportunity to respond to the defence's recent filings.

In addition to the vindictive prosecution allegations, Comey's team has submitted motions to argue that the former FBI director's social media post was protected free speech, which could potentially derail the government's prosecution.