Judge Assigned to Fired FBI Director James Comey’s Case

A federal judge has been assigned to preside over the case of fired FBI Director James Comey.

In late May, the U.S. Department of Justice issued new charges against Comey.

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U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan of the Eastern District of North Carolina has set Oct. 21 as a trial date in Comey’s case.

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted Comey in April, alleging that the seashell image was “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”

Restaurant veterans have said “86” is “everyday lingo” that can mean an item has run out or should be removed from the menu.

The trial was to have been held in July, but the schedule was pushed back after Comey’s team last week asked for more time, saying some of their arguments “may require extensive briefing.”

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Comey and his team plan to file motions to dismiss the case based on arguments including that it is a product of vindictive and selective prosecution. Flanagan referenced Comey’s plans in her order Tuesday.

If the case survives expected motions to dismiss, Comey would appear for an arraignment on Sept. 30 at the federal courthouse in New Bern, North Carolina.

Judge Flanagan, appointed by George W. Bush, is considered right-leaning, according to Ballotpedia.

Flanagan received a random case assignment after a grand jury indicted Comey on charges alleging that he threatened Trump by posting a photo on Instagram that featured seashells arranged in an “86 47” pattern in May 2024.

She has presided over thousands of cases throughout her tenure as an Article III judge. The U.S. Senate confirmed her as a federal district court judge in July 2003.

Before this, she served as a federal magistrate judge and worked at the law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Washington, D.C., before it merged with Dentons, the ABA Journal reports.

In an interview last weekend, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made it clear that Comey’s indictment was the result of a year-long investigation and had much more to it than his seashells photo posted to Instagram.

“Every case requires an investigation, and what you just showed is one part of that investigation. What you just showed is the Instagram post,” he told Fox News.

“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,” he continued.

“That’s why you saw an indictment last week, notwithstanding the fact that it was last May that the post was made. So I am not permitted to get into 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 added.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have revived a dormant investigation into whether Comey illegally leaked classified information to a trusted media cutout, two people familiar with the matter said, creating a third active criminal front against the longtime Trump antagonist.

The case centers on Comey’s decision to hand over sensitive memos documenting his private conversations with then-President Donald Trump to Columbia University Law Professor Daniel Richman, who then fed the material to The New York Times.

The disclosures formed the basis of a May 2017 front-page story that fueled the Russia collusion narrative early in Trump’s first term.

The probe, if it results in charges, would mark the Trump Justice Department’s third indictment of Comey since last fall — on top of a Florida review of a broader conspiracy case and a fresh North Carolina grand-jury indictment returned April 28 for an alleged social-media threat against the president.