Judge grants Comey’s request to delay trial
OAN Staff Jenna Lee
2:51 PM – Tuesday, May 26, 2026
A federal judge on Tuesday granted former FBI Director James Comey’s request to delay his criminal trial pertaining to allegations that he threatened President Donald Trump’s life though a subliminal social media post.
Comey was indicted last month after posting an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to form the sequence of numbers “86 47,” which many Americans and federal prosecutors have argued is coded slang to eliminate the 47th president.
U.S. District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan moved the trial to October 21st. Comey is now scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse in New Bern for an arraignment on September 30th, provided the case survives upcoming defense challenges.
“It’s not a very difficult line to look at, and it’s not, in my mind, a difficult line for one to cross over, one way or the other. We cannot, you are not allowed to threaten the President of the United States of America. That’s not my decision. That’s Congress’s decision, and a statute that they passed that we charge multiple times a year,” said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche during last month’s press conference.
Comey, who faces charges of threatening to kill the president, deleted the photo after receiving immediate backlash online. He has maintained that he was entirely “unaware” the image could be interpreted as a threat of violence.
“Well, they’re back. This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina Beach a year ago. And this won’t be the end of it, but nothing has changed with me. I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go,” said Comey in a video posted online after the indictment was unsealed.
The former FBI director reportedly intends to fight the indictment by filing multiple motions to dismiss. In her order, Judge Flanagan noted that some of these defense motions “may be dependent upon discovery yet to be produced by the government.”
Comey’s defense team for his federal criminal trial in North Carolina is structured under a dual-lawyer setup.
- Patrick Fitzgerald – Lead Counsel: Fitzgerald is a long-time friend and former colleague of Comey. He is known in federal circles as the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and the special counsel who prosecuted the mid-2000s CIA leak investigation involving Scooter Libby. Fitzgerald came out of retirement specifically to anchor Comey’s defense strategies across his federal indictments.
- Joseph Zeszotarski Jr. – Local Counsel: Based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, Zeszarski was officially added to the defense roster via a notice filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He is a local criminal defense attorney who has previously handled high-profile regional cases, including the defense of local officials in tax evasion and embezzlement proceedings.
In federal court, out-of-state “heavyweights” like Fitzgerald generally partner with a locally admitted attorney. Zeszotarski provides the mandatory local representation and navigating expertise specific to North Carolina’s eastern district rules, while Fitzgerald dictates the constitutional defense regarding the First Amendment arguments.
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