Acting AG Todd Blanche claims Comey case isn’t about ‘single incident’ as he’s grilled on indictment

The official now in charge of Donald Trump’s Justice Department and the president’s still-expanding campaign of federal prosecutions against his enemies, Todd Blanche, was grilled on Sunday over the latest entry on that list: The second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.

Charged this past week with threatening to do harm to the president of the United States, Comey was previously FBI director until 2017, when he was fired by Trump over the investigation into the president’s 2016 presidential campaign. Last year, he posted on Instagram a photo showing seashells spelling out the numbers “86 47”, an apparent reference to calls to remove Trump from office.

The former FBI director denied that his post suggested violence. His charging came 11 months after the post was made, and on Sunday, the acting attorney general spoke to NBC’s Kristen Welker and claimed that the DOJ had other evidence beyond just Comey’s social media posting to make its case. Experts have roundly agreed that the case is meritless if it hinges solely on the Instagram post, which Comey took down and apologized for last year, and even some Republicans have said they don’t expect the indictment to succeed.

“I am not permitted to get into the details of what the grand jury heard or found, as you know. But rest assured that it's not just the Instagram post that leads somebody to get indicted,” Blanche claimed on Sunday.

He added: “Every case requires an investigation. And what you just showed is one part of that investigation. What you just showed is the Instagram post. Rest assured that the career assistant United States attorneys in North Carolina, the career FBI agents, the career secret service agents that investigated this case didn't just look at the Instagram post and walk away.”

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Comey’s charges come as a second attempt by the Trump 2.0 Justice Department to get a case to stick. Last September, the former FBI director was charged with lying to Congress when he testified about investigations into Trump and Hillary Clinton led by the bureau, but those charges were tossed by a judge who ruled that Trump’s appointee to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Virginia, who was leading the case, was appointed illegally.

The two cases are just a few notches in a quickly growing line of political and, so far, unsuccessful cases brought by the Trump Justice Department in a little less than a year and a half against some of the president’s most frequent targets for criticism and personal scorn. Comey’s initial indictment was preceded by Trump publicly calling for the Department of Justice to take action against him.

In a Truth Social post, the president urged Blanche’s predecessor, Pam Bondi, to begin issuing indictments, an unprecedented step for an American president. The Wall Street Journal later reported the post was meant as a direct message.

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” Trump posted in September of 2025.

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Other targets have included Sen. Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — who this week cited that unprecedented legal assault as the reason he’d remain on the Federal Reserve’s board for the foreseeable future. The Justice Department ended an investigation into him last month to secure the vote of a key Senate Republican to confirm Powell’s replacement.

“I have said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality, and I stand by that,” Powell said. “I’m encouraged by recent developments, and I’m watching the remaining steps in this process carefully.”

Schiff responded to the news of Comey’s latest indictment in an interview on Sunday with Welker on the same program: “I was a prosecutor for almost six years. I never saw such a weak case.”

“I think this case is likely to be thrown out even before it goes to a jury. It will absolutely be thrown out by the jury [if it reaches that point],” Schiff continued.

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It’s a conundrum for both the president and Blanche both: The president expects results from a team that has so far been unable to provide them, and Blanche now faces the prospect of facing the same unceremonious ousting from the Department of Justice if he is not able to reverse the agency’s fortunes against Trump’s enemies. Meanwhile, career attorneys and other officials and staff at the DOJ have left in droves, concerned with the agency’s increased political bent, further hampering the DOJ’s overall effectiveness.

Comey responded in a Substack post, explaining on video that he expected more efforts by the Trump administration to come after him and other critics.

“This won’t be the end of it. But nothing has changed. I’m still innocent; I’m still not afraid. I still believe in an independent justice system,” he said.

Blanche, meanwhile, acknowledged again on Sunday that the thousands of Americans who have also used the phrase “86 47,” which Welker noted is prolific in merchandise sold on Amazon, should not fear prosecution.

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