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Three Strikes: Did Todd Blanche’s DOJ Violate Jim Comey’s Attorney-Client Privilege a Third Time?
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Jim Comey has submitted his reply briefs in his four pre-trial motions in the seashell case. Everything except DOJ exhibits is linked below (I’ll try to go back and link them but for now they are available at CourtListener).I will return to write about the debate over vindictive and selective prosecution. Comey’s challenge really is the best shot of expanding the doctrine of selective prosecution to respond to Trump’s weaponization of DOJ.
For now, though, I want to address a sealed filing.
Between his four replies, Comey submitted a sealed Supplemental Affidavit from Pat Fitzgerald and an exhibit — a recording of an April 27, 2026 hearing. Absent the two motions to seal at (affidavit; exhibit), t looks like this:
61: Reply to MTD for Lack of True Threat
62: Reply to MTD for Vindictive and Selective
63: Secret Fitzgerald affidavit that, “refers to matters under seal concerning grand jury proceedings.”
- Exhibit A: Audio recording of April 27, 2026 Hearing.
65: Reply to Motion to Suppress
66: Reply to Disclosure of Grand Jury Proceedings
There’s one reference in the Vindictive and Selective Reply, which the secret affidavit follows. It describes that something “in April 2026, after Mr. Blanche became the Acting Attorney General … the government had collected Mr. Comey’s Apple iCloud account, [but had not yet] review[ed] the materials collected.
Moreover, Mr. Boyle’s affidavit underscores that something irregular appears to have happened in April 2026, after Mr. Blanche became the Acting Attorney General. Mr. Boyle avers that: “Leading up to the decision to present the evidence to the grand jury, the prosecution team reviewed all evidence collected up to that point.” Dkt. 53-1 ¶ 11; see Opp. 24. But the discovery record shows that while the government had collected Mr. Comey’s Apple iCloud account, it proceeded to indict before it had the opportunity to review the materials collected. See Suppl. Aff. of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, filed concurrently under seal.
And while we can’t see what the affidavit and exhibit say, it does reveal that something happened “concerning grand jury proceedings,” about which there was a hearing on April 27, the day before this case was indicted.
There’s no obvious reference to that hearing in Comey’s reply bid to get grand jury transcripts, which you would think there would be if Comey had subsequently learned of irregularities in this grand jury.
And besides, the seashells case was indicted the next day, on April 28. It would be unusual for a normal grand jury to sit two days in a row.
Remember the timeline: Todd Blanche becomes Acting Attorney General on April 3 and commences his audition to get the job permanently. On April 17, Blanche installs Joe DiGenova, a key player in a Russian influence peddling scheme, to conduct an “investigation” into Comey. Ten days later there’s some irregularity involving a grand jury, one that pertains to the Apple warrant obtained on March 23.
In his original affidavit — the one we can read — we learn that that privileged material was shared with prosecutors, just as it had been in the EDVA prosecution.
40. The execution of the March warrant resulted in the Government seizing attorneyclient communications between Mr. Comey and two attorneys widely known to represent him: David Kelley and Daniel Richman. In proposing an attorney-client filter protocol to screen communications that included text exchanges, the Government filtered only for Mr. Kelley’s office landline numbers and not his cellphone number. Ex. OO. The Government made no provision to screen Mr. Richman’s communications. Id. Mr. Richman had been named in widely publicized judicial opinions in both EDVA and the District of Columbia within the prior year criticizing the Government’s earlier invasion of attorney client communications between Mr. Comey and Mr. Richman.17 By emails dated June 3, 2026 and June 5, 2026, the Government has agreed to quarantine those two conversations and has represented that those communications were reviewed by the First Assistant, two AUSAs, the case agent and an FBI supervisor, but only after the indictment was obtained.
That’s not surprising. The warrant — the one Comey argues was obtained by hiding a number of material facts — shows that Magistrate Judge James Gates took the privilege protocol out by hand.
A replaced with a note from Gates that if they find anything privileged they have to come back to him.
The discussions about that privileged material accords with the description that the seashells investigative team didn’t read the privileged files before they presented the case to the grand jury.
The communications or their contents were not presented to or discussed with the Grand Jury. The Indictment was approved and obtained before the agents or prosecutors had access to the communications or their contents. SA April Floyd and SSRA Stephanie Krug have reviewed the communications. Matthew Petracca, Phil Aubert, and myself have reviewed the communications. The filter agent is SA Kelly Kucala. We have a filter AUSA, but he has not reviewed any materials.
Those discussions also reveal that Timothy Severo — the guy who took over for the guy who indicted this, who left less than three weeks after he indicted the case — was inviting Comey to provide a privilege log only for the brief May 2025 period pertinent to the seashells case. As if he had a bigger universe of records in front of him.
We are in receipt of your email of June 1, 2026. The Government has taken the following steps concerning the Fractal Conversations (bates numbers 007357-007359 and 007425-007430) that you brought to our attentions in your email. Without conceding these materials are in fact protected by the attorney client privilege, we have purged the text communications from our server and notified the FBI to do the same. We are in the process of conducting an internal review to determine what if any other steps our office should undertake. We will communicate with you once we have completed this process. Additionally, we request that you provide a privilege log of all of the materials you believe are privileged in the iCloud returns from the relevant one week timeframe in May 2025.
Here’s the nutty thing about all this. As I noted in a post where I argued that this entire prosecution was an excuse to fish through Jim Comey’s materials, I quoted Todd Blanche saying this:
Well, I’m not going to get into the details of the investigation itself, but a lot of these cases, you can look at when the threats were made and when charges are brought. They are not easy cases, and so we have to, there’s a communication that is sent allegedly in this case, so that means we have to look at devices. Mr. Comey is a lawyer. He has lawyers. To the extent we are looking at materials that are potentially privileged, we have to get a wall and set up a wall and let totally independent lawyers look at them. That does not happen overnight or quickly. The Statute of Limitations is five years. We brought it under one year. That is where we are.
Todd Blanche told everyone they were snuffing through Jim Comey’s devices.
And we come to learn not only that they did not privilege review, but that the people indicting this case actually didn’t read those materials.
In related news, the Grand Conspiracy investigators — Joe DiGenova, who on top of being a subject of an investigation into foreign influence peddling also was one of Comey’s comparators in the selective prosecution scheme — subpoenaed Dan Richman again.
- MTD vindictive and selective prosecution
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- Appendix of Trump’s complaints (17 pages longer than it was last year)
- DOJ Response
- Comey Reply
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- Patrick Fitzgerald Affidavit
- Backup to May 15 Secret Service phone interview
- May 15 Executive Summary shared with Trump’s detail
- Reference to Kash Patel and Don Jr claiming 8647 was a threat
- Discussion of surveilling Comey on orders from DOJ number 3 (including recognition it would be illegal)
- Exigent surveillance request claiming it involved risk of death
- Discussion of Secret Service interview reflecting Trump involvement
- ASAC thanking people for work, including non-traditional
- Rudy Giuliani interview
- Sealed interview of nutball who wanted Comey jailed
- Charlotte opens full investigation
- FBI receives Secret Service file
- Star witness’ texts with Comey’s spouse
- Sentinel search for uses of 86
- Search in Gambino file for uses of 86
- AUSA suggesting more terms for searches in Gambino files
- Results of searches from Gambino files
- More results of searches from Gambino files
- Interview of old FBI Agent on whether the mob used the term 86
- Interview of another old FBI Agent on whether the mob used the term 86
- Google and AI searches on whether 86 meant to kill
- AI search debunking the case
- Another AI search debunking the case, citing Merriam-Webster
- Social media search of how Comey and his spouse would use 86
- 302 recording discussion about logistics for interview with Gravano
- Caveats about search of database of threat assessment database
- Document explaining Secret Service’s non-referral of the “threat”
- Subpoena to Amazon for 8645, 8646, and 8647 merch
- Subpoena response indicating the Feds have never inquired about that 86 merch
- Attempt to segregate privileged communications
- Secret Service SAIC claiming David Kelley should have sent metadata
- David Kelley’s response to SS request
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