Naturally, Blanche was asked about the indictment of the former FBI Director for posting a picture of seashells arranged to form the number \u201c8647.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does that image of seashells amount to a serious threat against the president\u2019s life?\u201d wondered the host.<\/p>\n
Blanche insisted that the indictment was the culmination of a long, careful investigation by \u201ccareer\u201d law enforcement. They\u2019ve been combing that beach for months looking for clues!<\/p>\n
\u201cRest 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\u2019t just look at the Instagram post and walk away. That\u2019s why you saw an indictment last week, notwithstanding the fact that it was last May that the post was made,\u201d he said, cocking his head like a vice principal explaining that the dress code isn\u2019t sexist, it\u2019s about respect.<\/p>\n
In fact, the only line attorney willing to put his name on this POS indictment was Matthew Petracca, whose prior experience<\/a> was mainly in state Medicaid fraud. His signature will presumably save the case from going the way of Comey\u2019s previous indictment, which was dismissed because Lindsey Halligan was never lawfully appointed as US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Petracca\u2019s boss W. Ellis Boyle has stuck around calling himself US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, despite the expiration of his 120-day interim appointment and his failure to win Senate confirmation.<\/p>\n Pressed as to what kind of evidence prosecutors could have other than the image, and Comey\u2019s immediate retraction and repudiation of violence, Blanche practically tapped the side of his nose.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are talking about evidence of all sorts. And that means documents, that means witnesses and that means, that means the whole array of what we did,\u201d he simpered.<\/p>\n This is a gambler who knows he\u2019ll never have to lay his cards on the table. Sooner or later \u2014 and probably sooner \u2014 the cops are going to bust in and confiscate the chips. Just like the last time the DOJ indicted Comey, a court will dismiss this dog of a case long before it gets to a jury. And so Blanche is free to say absolutely anything without worry that it will jeopardize the prosecution.<\/p>\n Well, not anything<\/em>. He\u2019s not an idiot like FBI Director Kash Patel, flapping his yap about the presentation to the grand jury. Todd Blanche does understand that grand jury secrecy under Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is actually kind of mandatory.<\/p>\n In this clip, Kash Patel says the grand jury heard evidence that Comey deleted the ‘8647’ post and apologized. Neither fact appears in the indictment.Hmm. Did the FBI director just disclose evidence presented before a grand jury?<\/p>\n \u2014 Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-04-28T21:29:26.582Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n But if he ever thought this case was going to trial, Blanche wouldn\u2019t concede that lots of people post \u201c8647\u201d online and don\u2019t get arrested for threatening to kill the president.<\/p>\n WELKER: On Amazon, there are dozens of “8647” products being sold and purchased right now. Should individuals selling or buying that merchandise be concerned they are going to prosecuted?BLANCHE: Of course not<\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-05-03T14:28:11.416Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThat phrase is used constantly,\u201d he admitted. \u201cThere are constantly men and women who choose to make threatening statements against President Trump. Every one of those statements do not result in indictments, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n If this were a real case, the head of the Justice Department wouldn\u2019t be on national television explaining that no one else in a comparable situation is getting charged. Blanche is an experienced criminal lawyer \u2014 he knows this clip will be Exhibit A in Comey\u2019s motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution. At this point, you have to assume this whole thing is part of a troll.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether Alina Habba is in on the joke, though. She spent a few months LARP-ing as US Attorney for New Jersey, but her prosecutorial experience is effectively nil. It\u2019s entirely possible that she didn\u2019t intentionally undermine the Comey indictment<\/a> on \u201cThe View\u201d last week. Maybe she did it out of sheer incompetence.<\/p>\n \u201cA gentleman posted that about me. He posted on Twitter \u201886 Habba\u2019 and he was also charged,\u201d she huffed, as the audience laughed at her claim that the DOJ \u201cbrings real cases.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Florida man Salvatore Russotto did<\/em> tweet out<\/a> his wish to\u201c86\u201d Habba, along with Senator Chuck Schumer, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Joe Biden, Jim Comey, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Canada, \u201call demonRATS,\u201d and Black people. He wished \u201ca slow and painful death\u201d on both Comey and Habba, and \u201cA VERY PAINFUL DEATH\u201d for former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino. In the event, he was only indicted<\/a> for threatening Habba \u2014 and it didn\u2019t take 11 months to investigate.<\/p>\n Blanche\u2019s argument is essentially \u201ctrust us, we\u2019re the DOJ.\u201d In the same appearance where he insisted<\/a> that Americans have to show ID to eat in a restaurant, the Acting AG promised to share the fruits of a supposedly meticulous investigation which has been underway for almost a year. In reality, Pam Bondi looked at this case and tossed the rancid crustacean carcasses back into the water. MSNOW<\/a> reports that the case was on indefinite hold until Bondi got fired, at which point Blanche demanded that someone bring him Comey\u2019s head.<\/p>\n It takes serious chutzpah to defend this blatant lawlessness by relying on the institutional credibility of the very agency you\u2019re destroying. But once you get used to lying on national television for a living, selling out the profession is all in a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The post Todd Blanche\u2019s Kayfabe Comey Case<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Todd Blanche is pretending to prosecute James Comey for threatening the president \u2026 but he\u2019s not pretending very hard.<\/p>\n Yesterday the Acting Attorney General sat down for a chat<\/a> with Meet the Press\u2019s Kristen Welker. Like his predecessor, he knows his main job is going on television \u2014 although his schtick involves the wide-eyed affectation of sincerity, rather than indignant tirades. He didn\u2019t mention the Dow even once!<\/p>\n Naturally, Blanche was asked about the indictment of the former FBI Director for posting a picture of seashells arranged to form the number \u201c8647.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow does that image of seashells amount to a serious threat against the president\u2019s life?\u201d wondered the host.<\/p>\n Blanche insisted that the indictment was the culmination of a long, careful investigation by \u201ccareer\u201d law enforcement. They\u2019ve been combing that beach for months looking for clues!<\/p>\n \u201cRest 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\u2019t just look at the Instagram post and walk away. That\u2019s why you saw an indictment last week, notwithstanding the fact that it was last May that the post was made,\u201d he said, cocking his head like a vice principal explaining that the dress code isn\u2019t sexist, it\u2019s about respect.<\/p>\n In fact, the only line attorney willing to put his name on this POS indictment was Matthew Petracca, whose prior experience<\/a> was mainly in state Medicaid fraud. His signature will presumably save the case from going the way of Comey\u2019s previous indictment, which was dismissed because Lindsey Halligan was never lawfully appointed as US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Petracca\u2019s boss W. Ellis Boyle has stuck around calling himself US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, despite the expiration of his 120-day interim appointment and his failure to win Senate confirmation.<\/p>\n Pressed as to what kind of evidence prosecutors could have other than the image, and Comey\u2019s immediate retraction and repudiation of violence, Blanche practically tapped the side of his nose.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are talking about evidence of all sorts. And that means documents, that means witnesses and that means, that means the whole array of what we did,\u201d he simpered.<\/p>\n This is a gambler who knows he\u2019ll never have to lay his cards on the table. Sooner or later \u2014 and probably sooner \u2014 the cops are going to bust in and confiscate the chips. Just like the last time the DOJ indicted Comey, a court will dismiss this dog of a case long before it gets to a jury. And so Blanche is free to say absolutely anything without worry that it will jeopardize the prosecution.<\/p>\n Well, not anything<\/em>. He\u2019s not an idiot like FBI Director Kash Patel, flapping his yap about the presentation to the grand jury. Todd Blanche does understand that grand jury secrecy under Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is actually kind of mandatory.<\/p>\n But if he ever thought this case was going to trial, Blanche wouldn\u2019t concede that lots of people post \u201c8647\u201d online and don\u2019t get arrested for threatening to kill the president.<\/p>\n \u201cThat phrase is used constantly,\u201d he admitted. \u201cThere are constantly men and women who choose to make threatening statements against President Trump. Every one of those statements do not result in indictments, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n If this were a real case, the head of the Justice Department wouldn\u2019t be on national television explaining that no one else in a comparable situation is getting charged. Blanche is an experienced criminal lawyer \u2014 he knows this clip will be Exhibit A in Comey\u2019s motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution. At this point, you have to assume this whole thing is part of a troll.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether Alina Habba is in on the joke, though. She spent a few months LARP-ing as US Attorney for New Jersey, but her prosecutorial experience is effectively nil. It\u2019s entirely possible that she didn\u2019t intentionally undermine the Comey indictment<\/a> on \u201cThe View\u201d last week. Maybe she did it out of sheer incompetence.<\/p>\n \u201cA gentleman posted that about me. He posted on Twitter \u201886 Habba\u2019 and he was also charged,\u201d she huffed, as the audience laughed at her claim that the DOJ \u201cbrings real cases.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Florida man Salvatore Russotto did<\/em> tweet out<\/a> his wish to\u201c86\u201d Habba, along with Senator Chuck Schumer, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Joe Biden, Jim Comey, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Canada, \u201call demonRATS,\u201d and Black people. He wished \u201ca slow and painful death\u201d on both Comey and Habba, and \u201cA VERY PAINFUL DEATH\u201d for former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino. In the event, he was only indicted<\/a> for threatening Habba \u2014 and it didn\u2019t take 11 months to investigate.<\/p>\n Blanche\u2019s argument is essentially \u201ctrust us, we\u2019re the DOJ.\u201d In the same appearance where he insisted<\/a> that Americans have to show ID to eat in a restaurant, the Acting AG promised to share the fruits of a supposedly meticulous investigation which has been underway for almost a year. In reality, Pam Bondi looked at this case and tossed the rancid crustacean carcasses back into the water. MSNOW<\/a> reports that the case was on indefinite hold until Bondi got fired, at which point Blanche demanded that someone bring him Comey\u2019s head.<\/p>\n It takes serious chutzpah to defend this blatant lawlessness by relying on the institutional credibility of the very agency you\u2019re destroying. But once you get used to lying on national television for a living, selling out the profession is all in a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Todd Blanche is pretending to prosecute James Comey for threatening the president \u2026 but he\u2019s not pretending very hard. Yesterday the Acting Attorney General sat down for a chat with Meet the Press\u2019s Kristen Welker. Like his predecessor, he knows his main job is going on television \u2014 although his schtick involves the wide-eyed affectation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/law-and-chaos-logo-liz-dye-300x153-D3azTo.jpg?fit=300%2C153&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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