{"id":20192,"date":"2026-05-30T08:50:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/lead-federal-prosecutor-in-james-comey-seashells-photo-case-steps-aside-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T08:50:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:50:37","slug":"lead-federal-prosecutor-in-james-comey-seashells-photo-case-steps-aside-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/lead-federal-prosecutor-in-james-comey-seashells-photo-case-steps-aside-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead federal prosecutor in James Comey seashells photo case steps aside – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of <\/a>threatening President Donald Trump\u2019s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram <\/a>has stepped off the case.
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Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing<\/a>.
Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina W. Ellis Boyle hired months ago, NBC News has reported<\/a>. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal challenges<\/a>.
Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a DOJ employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department, and did not respond to an additional request for comment on Friday. The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo is now heading the Comey case. Petracca did not handle a recent interaction with Comey\u2019s defense team, which instead communicated with First Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Aubart<\/a>.
A two-count indictment<\/a> was brought late last month and suggested that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells, arranged to spell out \u201c86 47,\u201d as \u201ca serious expression of an intent to do harm<\/a> to the President of the United States.\u201d
The indictment doesn\u2019t spell out what the numbers mean. The term \u201c86\u201d is widely considered<\/a> to be restaurant slang for being out of something in the kitchen, and the 47 was thought to be a reference to the 47th president.
It was the second time the Justice Department has tried to indict the former FBI director, a longtime target of Trump\u2019s. The first, over an allegation that Comey lied to Congress five years ago during remote testimony via Zoom, was dismissed by a judge<\/a> who ruled the federal prosecutor had been improperly appointed.
Trump has said he wants the Justice Department<\/a> to go after his political enemies; acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has argued that those now targeted by the Justice Department themselves used the law<\/a> to go after the president.
Some legal experts \u2014 including several conservatives<\/a> who typically defend the Trump administration\u2019s actions \u2014 criticized the case and expect it to be dismissed long before it gets to trial.
\u201cAs one of his longest and most vocal critics, I would frankly prefer to crawl into one of Comey\u2019s conversant shells than write this column,\u201d wrote scholar Jonathan Turley.<\/a> \u201cHowever, here we are. This indictment is unconstitutional and will not likely survive constitutional challenge.\u201d
After the indictment was announced, Trump said of Comey: \u201cComey is a dirty cop. He\u2019s a very dirty cop. He\u2019s a crooked man.\u201d
Comey\u2019s attorney has said he was going to file a motion arguing the case was a vindictive prosecution.
There are scores of T-shirts, hats, buttons, bumper stickers and posters for sale that read \u201c8647,\u201d including some that are made with seashells.<\/a>
Blanche said on \u201cCBS Mornings\u201d that he had \u201cno idea whether there was an investigation into the other times that that post has been made and whether that investigation yielded different results.\u201d
\u201cThis investigation that we undertook resulted in a two-count indictment,\u201d he said.
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump\u2019s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Matthew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}