Trump Adds Novels and TV Clips to Case Against Comey in Effort to Strengthen Indictment

0:00Michael Popok:The case against FBI Director James Comey by the Todd Blanch and Donald Trump-led Department of Justice is weaker than I thought. Comey has filed a series of motions to have his indictment because he and his wife were walking down the beach in North Carolina and they saw a picture or they saw a formation of seashells listing out 86-47. They had no idea what that meant. They certainly didn't post it as a true threat to kill the president. And yet Donald Trump's political critic and enemy, James Comey, who's been very public in his criticism against Donald Trump, finds himself on the wrong end of an indictment to kill the president.

0:44Michael Popok:Are you screwing with me? And now I know how weak the case really is because I now have the new filings by the Department of Justice. And you know what they're using to justify their indictment of the former FBI director, former Southern District of New York prosecutor? Excerpts from his novel, his fiction, an appearance on the Stephen Colbert show? Are you kidding me? That's all you got? If I'm the federal judge, I would, I think she should dismiss the indictments already. I'm Michael Popok. You're on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Let's get down to the brand new filings. Last week or so, Comey's lawyers, represented by Mr.

1:25Michael Popok:Fitzgerald, who used to be the U.S. prosecutor in Illinois and Chicago, filed a series of motions to get rid of this indictment out of the Eastern District of North Carolina. He was at his summer home in the Outer Banks. He was about to have his book released, FDR Drive, when he and his wife saw this seashell formation. They didn't know what it meant. They had to look it up. And what they looked up was what we commonly refer to as a slang instruction to communicate that something is out or is off the menu or is no longer available, to remove it from the ordering process. I used it all the time when I worked in a diner to support myself when I was studying for the bar.

2:15Michael Popok:When the short order cook in the back said 86 the ham salad, that meant we were out of ham salad and to stop selling it. It didn't mean take the ham salad out in the back and assassinate it. And so when I'm going, I'm paging through dozens and dozens of pages. We'll put them up on Legal AF Substack to try to get to the bottom. What are they going to say about the opposition to dismissing the indictment for vindictive prosecution, given the fact that Donald Trump almost almost at every turn and every social media post accuses James Comey of being a lying, sleazebag criminal that should be behind bars?

2:52Michael Popok:And now, lo and behold, his Department of Justice, led by Todd Blanche, indicts him. How is this not vindictive prosecution after they lost the prosecution and indictment related to his testimony before Congress in 2020 when Lindsey Halligan was thrown out of the U.S. Attorney's Office and her indictments of James Comey and of Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, thrown out along with her? They said, well, we started the investigation about the seashells earlier. Oh, you did? You started them earlier? I'll tell you one thing. Say what you want about Pam Bondi, but she refused to bring the indictment based on seashells.

3:32Michael Popok:They had that one in their back pocket waiting for Todd Blanche, who effectively told Donald Trump, you nominate me for attorney general, sir, my friend. I'll do anything you want me to do, including going after James Comey for seashells on the beach. But the book, let me read to you so you don't think I'm making anything up. We bring the receipts here on Legal AF. Did I mention to you we're on Legal AF? I'm Michael Popok. Hit the free subscribe button. Let me read to you from the use on the fourth page of the opposition papers of James Comey's novel. By definition, a novel is a work of fiction.

4:15Michael Popok:And in the novel called FDR Drive, which was published about five days earlier, it was about a federal prosecutor trying to take down a guy named Samuel Buchanan, a far right media personality with a podcast, because he suggested on the podcast and singling out his enemies by name, suggested something should be done about them. and some fans ended up killing them. And there's a description in the novel that's repeated on page four of the opposition papers, signed by Stan Woodward. Stan Woodward, mind you, was in private practice, represented the butler and body man for Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago case.

5:02Michael Popok:It was accused and indicted for destroying evidence. Stan Woodward, with Todd Blanchett nowhere to be seen, has this excerpt. Sean, who's the, this is a conversation involving Buchanan and the term concept stochastic terrorism. Sean nodded, it's where a charismatic leader jacks people up, but through the wonder of the internet avoids a direct connection to what comes next. Stochastic is a term from statistics that means you can estimate the likelihood of something happening, even if you can't predict who will do it and when and where. Jessica lifted her hand. So it's like when King Henry II got Thomas Beckett killed by simply saying, will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

5:49Michael Popok:Exactly. And they go on, chapter and verse, on excerpts from this novel. And then they try, I guess, in a little cute turnabout as fair play to try to hoist James Comey on his own. Author petard on page six, they say, on May 15th, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey, through the wonder of the internet, posted a coded message to his followers, meaning kill or get rid of, a euphemism for kill, President Trump. He's acknowledged taking the picture of the seashells. Are you effing kidding me? That's your case? Your case is that he wrote a book, about stochastic terrorism, and you and James Comey is a charismatic leader.

6:41Michael Popok:They then go on on page seven to talk about, I guess the Comeys were looking up what 86 meant. In any event, at 3.12 p.m., Comey's wife sent him a screenshot, including what appeared to have been a crop definition of U.S. English slang, indicating that 86 means to get rid of or refuse service. Comey posted a picture of the seashells on his Instagram account with the caption, cool shell formation on my beach walk. And then they have this whole debate, which has been rejected by prior federal judges, that 86 means a true threat that would have been taken as a threat to kill somebody under the slang.

7:20Michael Popok:They try to fumble around and say, well, mobsters use it. An FBI director would have known that mobsters use it. Are you kidding me? I never heard that in my entire life. Neither did other federal judges that looked at this issue. And if you're coming down to Webster's dictionary definitions to support your indictment, then something's gone terribly wrong. You know what else they use to support their indictment and their charging decision? An email or a text from one of Comey's own cousins. This is what we're down to, folks, in which the cousin wrote to Comey's wife, you guys have gone off the deep end over the years with your Trump derangement syndrome.

7:59Michael Popok:8647 is a call for violence. You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope Jim goes to jail. Okay, well, I'm glad the cousin thinks that. Is that what prosecutorial discretion is about? Let's take a poll of somebody's family members and cousins to decide whether a crime has been committed and whether an indictment, that's what the Department of Justice manual says. And then we have the other major evidentiary support for the indictment. Are you ready? Sit down for this one. Grab a cup of coffee. His appearance, James Comey's appearance, to sell his book on the Stephen Colbert show, in which Colbert says to him, and I'm going to show the clip in a minute, you stirred up a little controversy.

8:42Michael Popok:You were taking a walk, but your Instagram, this you were walking on the beach. What happened? You saw this on the beach and they have the photo. Yeah, my wife and I, Patrice, were walking on the beach and saw those numbers in shells on the beach. Let's play the clip. You stirred up a little controversy recently. I was going to say you landed in some hot water, but it's not hot water. It's just water because I don't know if you do this on purpose just to get attention here, but you, you, is this Instagram? Instagram, yeah. You grahammed this. You were walking on the beach. What happened? You were walking on the beach and you saw this on the beach?

9:19Yeah, my wife and I, Patrice, were walking on the beach and saw those numbers in shells on the beach. You didn't do this. Somebody else did this. Yeah, somebody else did it. We were on a walk preparing for this week. Right. Roll out of my book. Yeah. She looked at it and said, why'd someone put their address in the sand? All right. And then we stood at it, trying to figure, looked at it, trying to figure out what it was.

9:38Michael Popok:And she'd long been a server in restaurants. And she said, you know what I think it is? Yeah. I think it's a reference to restaurants when you would 86 something in a restaurant. Right. It's off the menu. Yeah. I said, no, I remember when I was a kid, you'd say 86 to get out of a place. This place stinks. Let's 86 it. I was a bartender. You would 86 a customer if they were getting drunk. Like, that's 86. I'm just like, give them a low proof alcohol or something like that. Yeah. And so I said, I think it's a clever political message. And she said, you should take a picture of it. I said, sure. And then she said, you should Instagram that.

10:07And boom. OK, I'll tell you the clip they didn't play that supports the vindictive prosecution.

10:14Michael Popok:It's Comey coming out and talking about how Jan 6 pardons were a stain on our nation. Play that clip. Last time you were on the show, you said participants in the January 6th riot and insurrection should be, quote, brought to justice and punished severely. Since then, the president took a slightly different tack. He pardoned all of them without differentiating what their crimes had been.

10:41Don't listen to them. Make your own decision. Was that a good decision or a bad decision by the president of the United States? It was an obscenity that will stain this country forever.

10:57Michael Popok:I didn't see that anywhere in the filing. If this is what the prosecution is down to, excerpts from his book taken out of context, from a novel to try to justify a proper prosecution under the principles of federal prosecution and the Department of Justice manual, a federal prosecutor cannot bring a case unless in good faith he believes that there is probable cause to support that case, evidence to support that case, and to obtain a conviction that will be affirmed all the way through trial and through appeal. That's not happening here. If you're left with grasping at straws and novels and book excerpts and appearances on late night television and cousins chastising text messages.

11:44Michael Popok:That is by very definition an abuse of prosecutorial power. And the judge in this case should be dismissing it any day now. I'm going to continue to follow it right here on Legal AF. More to come. We got our programming note tonight. Catch us on Legal AF, the podcast on the Midas Touch Network at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on the Midas Touch Network. In the meantime, hit that free subscribe button here on Legal AF YouTube. Until my next report, I'm Michael.

12:40Michael Popok:hot takes where legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.