Federal officials involved in the prosecution of James Comey misled judges, submitted false statements and withheld key facts during the course of the investigation, according to new defense filings that seek the dismissal of a case charging the former FBI director with threatening President Donald Trump on social media. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
Lawyers for Comey made the allegations of misconduct in motions filed late Tuesday that also call the case a vindictive and selective prosecution, request access to transcripts of grand jury proceedings to expose what they say are "irregularities" in how the indictment was secured, and describe "unlawful" surveillance of Comey by the Secret Service.
Comey was charged in April with threatening Trump through a photo he posted on Instagram a year earlier depicting seashells he said he found on the beach in North Carolina in the numerical arrangement of "86 47." The Justice Department has said the photo constituted a threat against Trump, the 47th president. 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.
Defense lawyers say investigators who tried to prove that Comey intended a physical threat, or knew that the number "86" suggested violence, repeatedly came up empty but withheld that from federal magistrates as they applied for warrants to search the digital accounts of Comey and his wife. For instance, the FBI searched an internal database for any indication of an association between Comey and the term "86" but found inconclusive results. 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 cooperator in the case, Salvatore Gravano, who said he did not recall ever discussing the term "86" with Comey or hearing it in connection with the trial.
In addition, defense lawyers say the warrant applications distort statements made to investigators by a person who knew Comey but has been now estranged from him for years. The person, whose name is not revealed in the court filings, is described in the affidavit as saying that they immediately perceived Comey's post to have a violent meaning. But investigators omitted from the affidavit that the person had said their initial impression was that "86" referred to something else.