Glaring giveaways hide in plain sight inside Trump revenge case: analyst

A national security journalist spotted a glaring inconsistency in the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey that she said gives away how political the case appears to be.

Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel laid out a side-by-side comparison Monday of four threat cases charged by Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent weeks, and concluded Comey's looks oddly different than the others.

"Jim Comey’s indictment looks flimsy in isolation. It also looks like overkill, especially when compared to what else Ellis Boyle was approving in the very same weeks," she wrote.

Boyle has charged four people with threats against Trump or his aides since April 21, but Wheeler noted Comey's case is the only one Boyle announced immediately, in a "glitzy" press conference alongside Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel. Another defendant indicted on roughly the same schedule, Christopher James Hill, was quietly announced Monday, weeks after his arrest.

Comey is also the only one of the four with a forfeiture allegation in his indictment, and the AUSA in his case described the alleged threat in far more detail than in any of the others.

The "8647" seashell post at the center of the case has been widely panned by legal experts as constitutionally indefensible. Wheeler's findings track with previous reports that the seashells case sat on the back burner until Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.