US Domestic — 2026-07-29

Court Filing Reveals Secret Service Conducted Illegal Electronic Surveillance of Former FBI Director Comey at Trump Direction

BLUFCourt-filed messages showing agents flagging the surveillance as unlawful give Comey's defense the rarest asset in a vindictive-prosecution claim: the government's own paper trail.

Lawyers for James Comey filed a motion to dismiss Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina 12. The filing alleges the Secret Service conducted warrantless electronic surveillance of the former FBI director at the request of a senior DOJ official, the same day Trump publicly accused Comey of threatening his life over a May 2025 Instagram photo spelling "86 47" in seashells 12. A Secret Service supervisor called the monitoring "legally questionable," and messages filed in court show staff discussing "pinging" Comey's phone and asking Verizon for his location under an "emergency" designation 1. CNBC reported the surveillance tracked Comey and his wife driving to Virginia, including a stop at their son's grave, and that the Secret Service relayed updates to Air Force One at Trump's request before adopting a same-day policy treating "8647" as coded threat language 2. A DOJ spokesperson said Comey "will have his day in court like any other defendant" following his indictment by a North Carolina grand jury 1.

Analysis
Comey's motion converts the prosecution into an allegation of governmental misconduct, with internal Secret Service messages flagging the monitoring as unlawful and Air Force One receiving direct updates pointing to coordination running from the White House through DOJ leadership into a law-enforcement agency, a convergence rarely this explicit in prior obstruction disputes, a reading credited more heavily given independent corroboration from CBS News and CNBC converging on the underlying court record rather than a single-channel account. If Judge Flanagan credits the vindictive-prosecution theory, suppression of warrant-derived evidence could unravel the case before the September arraignment, though the government may cast the tracking as standard protective-intelligence protocol rather than a politically directed operation. Even short of dismissal, the allegations expose Secret Service and DOJ conduct to oversight and civil-liability scrutiny independent of the criminal outcome.

4 sources

Comey claims DOJ ordered illegal surveillance in new motion seeking dismissal of Trump threat charges - CBS News
Secret Service 'illegally' surveilled Comey in Trump '8647' threat case: Court filing - CNBC
James Comey former FBI director presses to dismiss charges - Spectrum News
Comey's Motion to Dismiss for Vindictive and Selective Prosecution, United States v. Comey, No. 4:26-cr-00016 - U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina