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james comey
The Tragic Transformation of Todd Blanche
Someday Blanche’s progeny may ask him why—as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States—he helped a rogue president run roughshod over the rule of law.
May 03, 2026
During President Donald Trump’s first term, he bemoaned the failure of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to protect him from the Justice Department’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to elect Trump in 2016.
“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump erupted, referring to his notorious former fixer who had also been Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man during the 1950s Senate hearings into communist activity. Trump later fired Sessions.
For a time, Attorney General William Barr was the answer. But the two men parted ways after Barr told him repeatedly that no evidence supported Trump’s obsessive claims that voter fraud had cost him the 2020 election.
In Trump’s second term, it appeared that Pam Bondi fit the bill. She tried valiantly to meet Trump’s every legal need. She transformed the Justice Department into Trump’s personal tool, prosecuted Trump’s perceived enemies, and tried to protect Trump from the fallout over the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors.
Bondi's Deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.
But she bungled the Epstein files. She tried but failed to prosecute two key targets on Trump’s vengeance list: New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. She savaged her own reputation but could not save her job.
Bondi’s deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.
From Democrat to Trump Enabler
Blanche began his legal career in 1999 as a paralegal in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Working days and attending Brooklyn Law School at night, he graduated in 2003. After a stint as an associate in the Davis Polk firm and two federal court clerkships, he returned in 2006 to the US Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor and eventually became co-chief of the violent crimes division.
In 2014, Blanche joined the WilmerHale firm as a partner before moving to another big New York firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft. In 2019, he represented Paul Manafort on state mortgage fraud charges similar to federal crimes for which Manafort had already been convicted in 2018. (Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020). Blanche got the state law claims dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.
But in April 2023, Cadwalader balked when Blanche, then a registered Democrat, sought to represent Trump in the hush-money case involving payments to Stormy Daniels. So Blanche left Cadwalader and started his own firm. The jury eventually convicted Trump, but for Blanche it began a profitable relationship that generated over $3 million from Trump’s Save America PAC in the new firm’s first year alone.
Blanche went on to represent Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and in the election obstruction case involving Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. In 2024, Blanche switched his registration from Democrat to Republican.
Trump’s Latest Roy Cohn
Blanche is no longer Trump’s personal attorney, but you wouldn’t know it from his conduct in office.
Although he was the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, in July 2025 he tried to quiet the MAGA backlash over Trump’s breach of an election pledge to release the Justice Department’s Epstein files. Blanche went to Florida where Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell was in prison and interviewed her personally. Openly seeking a pardon, Maxwell said that she had never seen Trump do anything inappropriate.
Mission accomplished.
Shortly thereafter, Maxwell was transferred to a “club fed-type” prison camp—even though her conviction had rendered her ineligible for such placement under Bureau of Prisons policy. Blanche said that threats against her were the reason for the transfer.
As acting attorney general, Blanche has now picked up where Bondi had failed to put Comey behind bars. At an April 28, 2026 press conference, he announced Comey’s indictment alleging that in posting an Instagram photo of sea shells that formed “86 47” on a North Carolina beach, Comey “knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States.”
A sea-shell death threat via Instagram.
“So, I think it's fair to say that threatening the life of anybody is dangerous and potentially a crime,” Blanche said indignantly as he explained that the charges against Comey came with a 10-year potential prison sentence. “Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice.”
Blanche continued, “[W]hile this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute.”
Really? How about these?
“Hang Mike Pence”—Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists, some of whom may have been responsible for the sign carrying that message and the gallows accompanying it. The statute of limitations on such “threats” is five years. Where was that indictment?
“86 46”—Anti-Biden Trump social media personality Jack Posobiec posted this in January 2022. It also appeared on T-Shirts, caps, and Republican fundraising messages.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) posted this in February 2024: “We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell. Better days are ahead for the Republican Party.”
Wasting Taxpayer Money
Prosecutors face a daunting task proving Comey’s subjective intent to harm Trump. Even longtime Trump apologist Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, acknowledged that the indictment “is unlikely to survive constitutional scrutiny. If it did, it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States.”
When asked at his press conference how he would prove intent, Blanche said “with witnesses, with documents, and with the defendant himself,” adding: “It's very premature for me to do that today.”
That non-answer won’t suffice when Comey’s lawyers provide evidence that this is just another vindictive prosecution on Trump’s behalf at taxpayer expense.
Someday Blanche’s progeny may ask him why—as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States—he helped a rogue president run roughshod over the rule of law.
He probably won’t tell them about Roy Cohn.
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Comey Indictment Called 'New Low' for White House 'At War with First Amendment'
"This is embarrassing for America," said one First Amendment advocate.
Apr 29, 2026
As the corporate media joins the White House in a new round of accusations against critics of President Donald Trump in the wake of an attempted attack on the White House Correspondents' Association dinner last week—with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche blaming anti-Trump "rhetoric" for the violence at the event—the administration on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment of longtime Trump foe James Comey in what legal experts called a transparent attack on the First Amendment.
At a press conference held by Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, the officials made the case—without presenting specific evidence—that a federal grand jury in North Carolina had indicted former FBI chief Comey because he'd "knowingly and willfully [made] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon" Trump in May 2025 in a photo he posted on Instagram.
The picture showed seashells grouped together in a pattern, reading, "86 47."
Trump is the 47th president of the United States, and the slang term "86" means "to get rid of," originating in the 1930s. According to Merriam-Webster, the term began being used as a verb in the 1950s when restaurants and bars used it to mean refusing service to a customer or throwing them out of an establishment. That use of the term is still the most common, according to the dictionary, which wrote: "Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of 'to kill.' We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use."
Comey quickly deleted his post last May, which he said he had shared after finding the seashells in the arrangement during a walk on a beach. The former FBI director said he deleted that post after realizing "some folks associate those numbers with violence," and said he opposes violence "of any kind."
Nevertheless, the indictment handed down on Tuesday reads that the shells were “arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47,' which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States.”
Comey was charged with one count of making threats against Trump and one count of transmitting a threat across state lines.
Federal officials issued a warrant for Comey's arrest, but Blanche did not say whether any court dates had been scheduled in the case.
The indictment was dismissed by several legal experts, with prosecutors within the US Department of Justice reportedly calling it "the flimsiest federal indictment in memory," according to ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl. Building a case based solely on an image of seashells will be an uphill battle for the DOJ, particularly considering First Amendment protections on speech.
New York University law professor Ryan Goodman called the indictment "laughably ludicrous" and a "political act masquerading as an indictment," while US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) condemned the president for using the DOJ as his "personal attack dog, using taxpayer money to settle Trump's petty grievances."
This is the second federal indictment that's been handed down by the DOJ for Comey in seven months. Last September he was indicted on two counts of lying to Congress during a testimony he gave in 2020 regarding the FBI's handling of its investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign's ties to Russia.
The DOJ indicted Comey in that case even though a Trump-appointed US attorney had concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him; the president later forced the prosecutor out of his job. A judge ultimately threw out the indictment, ruling that the prosecutor's replacement had been unlawfully appointed to oversee the case.
Both cases have come years after Trump, during his first term, fired Comey as FBI director over the agency's investigation into his 2016 campaign.
Conservative lawyer Gregg Nunziata of the Society for the Rule of Law called the latest indictment of Comey "legally deficient" and a "scandalous marker of a president and his administration corruptly using government power to punish dissent."
American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted that the administration has "repeatedly pursued criminal charges (or other punishments) against political opponents for their speech, at a level not seen since the most censorious days of the early 20th century," including by attempting to charge members of Congress for reminding service members they are obligated to disobey illegal orders.
"In an administration at war with the First Amendment," said Reichlin-Melnick, "this is a new low."
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The Tragic Case of a Very Incompetent Lindsay Halligan
From professional whitewasher of American history to one of the most high-profile examples of legal malpractice ever witnessed by a federal prosecutor—all in service to the endless narcissism and corruption of Donald J. Trump.
Nov 26, 2025
In the service of President Donald Trump, Lindsay Halligan, Trump’s second interim appointment as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, may lose her license to practice law.
Who is Halligan?
Competence is a key requirement for obtaining and retaining a law license. But nothing in Halligan’s education, experience, or training qualified her to prosecute federal crimes, much less lead a US Attorney’s office of more than 300 attorneys and staff in four divisions in Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, and Newport News. For starters, she has never tried a criminal case. But Trump always prefers loyalty over competence.
Halligan attended a private Catholic high school and a Jesuit university where she studied politics and broadcast journalism. She competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageant in 2009 and 2010 and received her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. Upon graduation, she went to work in a Miami law firm, representing insurance companies against homeowners and businesses.
Even if Halligan manages to keep her law license, she will never recover her professional reputation. It’s the Trump effect.
Halligan met Trump in November 2021 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. In early 2022, he made her part of his legal team on the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
After the election, she worked on Trump’s project to whitewash US history by cleansing the Smithsonian Institution of historically accurate but unpleasant facts. In August, she co-signed a letter instructing eight of the Smithsonian’s museums to replace exhibits that include “divisive or ideologically driven” material with “unifying, historically accurate” displays.
Answering Trump’s Call…
Based on the weakness of the cases against former FBI director James Comey and another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump’s first interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eric S. Siebert, refused his demand to indict them. Trump responded by declaring that he wanted Siebert “out.” Hours later, he resigned.
With the statute of limitations on charges against Comey expiring in days, Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint 36-year-old Halligan—a senior White House staff secretary and special assistant to the President—as Siebert’s replacement.
“Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you a lot,” Trump posted in a public message to Bondi.
Two days later, Halligan was sworn in as the new interim US Attorney. Her singular mission was to secure indictments against Comey and James.
Two days after that, on September 24, she succeeded. Halligan presented the case against Comey personally to the grand jury. Federal judges are now exposing her incompetence.
November 17: A federal magistrate judge found that the government may have violated Comey’s constitutional rights and his attorney-client privilege. The court listed 11 bases upon which the government’s misconduct—including Halligan’s statements to and conduct before the grand jury—may have violated the Constitution and require dismissal of Comey’s indictment.
November 19: Halligan admitted to another federal judge that she never showed the final indictment to the entire grand jury after it had rejected her first submission – a remarkable prosecutorial failure.
November 24: In rulings that invalidated the Comey and James indictments based on Trump’s unlawful appointment of Halligan, a third court began its opinion with this shot:
On September 25, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just days before, Ms. Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging former FBI Director James B. Comey, Jr….
…And Suffering the Consequences
Every attorney requires a license to practice law. The bar examiners who issue and renew those licenses promulgate rules of conduct that every lawyer must follow. Even before the latest judicial revelations, Halligan was defending complaints that she had violated those rules. But with the latest court rulings, she is in a whole new world of hurt. And Trump’s pardons won’t help her.
Here’s a partial list of the Model Rules that could pose problems for Halligan:
Rule 1.1: Competence
A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.”
[Halligan has never tried a criminal case.]
Rule 3.1: Meritorious Claims and Contentions
A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous,….”
[Halligan’s predecessor found that the case against Comey was too weak to pursue.]
Rule 3.8: Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor
The prosecutor in a criminal case shall:
(a)refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause;….”
[Here, again, her predecessor found that any case against Comey was a loser for the government.]
Rule 8.4: Misconduct
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;….”
[The circumstances surrounding Trump’s appointment of Halligan and her subsequent indictment of Comey suggest an abuse of power and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.]
Special rules for federal prosecutors echo and reinforce the Model Rules. They too require probable cause for charges, investigations and prosecutions that are conducted fairly and without vindictiveness, and a ban against politicized or partisan prosecutions.
In fact, the Justice Department has a “longstanding threshold requirement that a prosecutor may commence or recommend federal prosecution only if he/she believes that the person will more likely than not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by an unbiased trier of fact and that the conviction will be upheld on appeal.”
Even if Halligan manages to keep her law license, she will never recover her professional reputation. It’s the Trump effect.
Maybe she can get Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s old job at Fox News.
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