Comey builds legal team to fight NC presidential threat case

A former US deputy solicitor general with more than 100 arguments before the US Supreme Court is one of six new lawyers who have joined former FBI Director James Comey’s defense team in North Carolina. Comey faces federal charges of threatening President Donald Trump with a 2025 social media post involving seashells.

A half dozen lawyers filed notices of special appearance Monday in Comey’s case. Among them is Michael Dreeben, a Georgetown Law School distinguished lecturer. “As Deputy Solicitor General from 1994 to 2019, Dreeben supervised the criminal docket for the United States in the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to his Georgetown Law biography. “Dreeben has argued 109 Supreme Court cases on behalf of the United States and private litigants and has briefed hundreds of other cases in the Supreme Court and in the lower federal courts.”

Dreeben represented current North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein during oral arguments at the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2022. Serving then as state attorney general, Stein challenged a 1931 state criminal libel law.

The five other new lawyers on Comey’s defense team all work for the Cooley law firm in Washington, DC. The Cooley lawyers include Rebekah Donaleski, “a former federal prosecutor who spent nearly a decade at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), most recently as chief of the Public Corruption Unit, where she oversaw some of the most high-profile, complex matters for the Department of Justice (DOJ),” according to her corporate bio.

The team also includes Ephraim McDowell, a partner in Cooley’s Supreme Court and appellate practice. “He has argued five cases before the US Supreme Court, as well as numerous cases in courts of appeals and district courts,” according to his bio. “Before joining Cooley, Ephraim served in the Office of the Solicitor General at the US Department of Justice, where he argued Supreme Court cases involving securities, tax, healthcare and free speech and filed roughly 80 Supreme Court briefs.”

Carolina Journal reported in May that former Chicago-based US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was representing Comey in the North Carolina case. Fitzgerald “is best known for his role as special prosecutor in the investigation into a CIA leak that brought charges against I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby,” according to a September 2025 NBC News report.

Comey is scheduled for arraignment on Sept. 30 in New Bern. A trial is scheduled on Oct. 21 before US District Judge Louise Flanagan.

Flanagan issued an order last month delaying proceedings in the case. Comey’s arraignment had been scheduled June 30, with a trial to follow on July 15.

Comey had filed a request seeking a delay.

“The gravity of the charges, anticipated further discovery production to defendant, and the need to provide defendant time to file motions based upon same promote need for continuance,” Flanagan wrote in her May order. “Implicit in the government’s reported statement of no opposition here is the government’s agreement that the ends of justice served by this continuance, for direct benefit of defendant, outweigh the interests of the public in a speedy trial.”

Comey’s lawyers filed a motion on May 20 to push the arraignment back to October.

“Mr. Comey expects to file multiple motions on constitutional grounds seeking dismissal of the indictment,” his lawyers wrote. “Some of these motions may be dependent upon the discovery to be produced by the Government, and may require extensive briefing. Discovery is still forthcoming from the Government. For that reason, Mr. Comey respectfully requests that the Court extend the current scheduling deadlines.”

Phil Aubart, the first assistant US attorney working on the case, “does not oppose” Comey’s proposed schedule, according to the court filing.

Comey faces two charges related to alleged threats against Trump. The charges are based on a 2025 Instagram post in which Comey documented sea shells on a beach arranged to spell out “86 47.”

The slang term “86” means “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to refuse service to,” according to Merriam-Webster.com. Trump is the 47th American president.

Comey appeared in a Virginia federal courthouse on April 29, the day after his indictment.

The indictment charges that Comey “knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States.”

While in the “Eastern District of North Carolina,” Comey “publicly posted a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells 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,” according to the indictment.

A second count charges that Comey “knowingly and willfully did transmit in interstate and foreign commerce a communication that contained a threat to kill the President, Donald J. Trump, specifically.”

“Threatening the life of the President of the United States is a grave violation of our nation’s laws,” US Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a news release. “The grand jury returned an indictment alleging James Comey did just that, at a time when this country has witnessed violent incitement followed by deadly actions against President Trump and other elected officials. The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable.” 

Comey is charged with threatening the president in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted.

The since-deleted social media post prompted a backlash last year. “Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey wrote along with the photo of the arranged sea shells in the sand.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” Comey wrote in a later Instagram post. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

The North Carolina case was the Justice Department’s second indictment of Comey in seven months. In September 2025 he faced an indictment on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress during testimony in 2020. That case was dropped when a judge concluded that the prosecutor handling the case had been appointed illegally.

“Comey builds legal team to fight NC presidential threat case” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.