2026年5月29日 / 美国东部时间晚上9:14 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
根据周五晚间提交的法庭文件，曾签署起诉书指控前联邦调查局局长詹姆斯·科米通过张贴摆成“86 47”字样的贝壳照片威胁特朗普总统的联邦检察官，现已不再负责该案。
作为特朗普的 frequent 批评者，科米上月在北卡罗来纳州遭到起诉。该起诉书遭到了强烈批评，科米的法律团队已表示计划以选择性起诉和报复性起诉为由申请驳回此案。
周五的法庭文件请求将原本被列为政府在科米案中首席律师的美国助理检察官马修·佩特拉卡从案件卷宗中移除，由联邦检察官蒂莫西·塞韦罗接任。
根据法庭文件，佩特拉卡自上周以来至少还被调离了另外三起案件，但文件未说明他卸任的具体原因。
哥伦比亚广播公司新闻已联系佩特拉卡以及负责科米案的北卡罗来纳州东区美国检察官办公室。
NBC新闻最先报道了佩特拉卡退出该案的消息。
针对科米的案件原定于10月开庭审理，该案源于这位前联邦调查局局长2025年5月在Instagram上发布的一张照片，照片中贝壳在海滩上组成了数字“86 47”。科米当时遭到特朗普及其盟友的强烈抨击，他们认为数字“86”的使用暗示了杀害第47任总统的意图。韦氏词典将“86”定义为俚语，意为“赶走”或“除掉”。
科米很快删除了这张照片，并表示他“没意识到有些人将这些数字与暴力联系在一起”，他在后续的Instagram帖子中写道，他在海滩散步时发现了这些贝壳，“以为[它们]是一条政治信息”。
近一年后，北卡罗来纳州的联邦检察官以一项威胁总统生命罪和一项跨州传播威胁罪提起了诉讼。特朗普在社交媒体上回应称科米是“肮脏的警察”。
科米否认了所有不当行为，并誓言将在法庭上对抗指控。
该起诉书遭到了众多法律专家的批评，他们指出证明某一言论构成威胁的标准极高，并认为这些指控是为了惩罚科米的政治观点。自2017年特朗普解雇他的联邦调查局局长职务以来，科米一直是直言不讳的特朗普反对者。
佩斯大学教授、前检察官佩里·卡博内本月早些时候告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻：“如果你可以仅仅因为某人在沙滩上用贝壳摆出一个模糊的信息就对其提起指控，如果这就算是威胁，就算是刑事言论，那么第一修正案将面临严重危机。”
此次起诉是在司法部另一起试图起诉科米涉嫌向国会撒谎的行动七个月后发起的。那起起诉书中，科米的律师同样辩称其具有报复性和选择性，最终弗吉尼亚州一名联邦法官以负责该案的检察官任命不当为由驳回了指控。
司法部长托德·布兰奇否认北卡罗来纳州的这起案件具有政治动机，他告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，该案是由“当地检察官”和“当地执法人员”牵头的。
“我甚至都不知道他们的名字，”布兰奇在谈及北卡罗来纳州的联邦检察官时说道。
Lead prosecutor leaves DOJ’s case accusing James Comey of threatening Trump by posting “86 47” in seashells
May 29, 2026 / 9:14 PM EDT / CBS News
The federal prosecutor who signed an indictment accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Trump by posting an image of seashells arranged as “86 47” is no longer on the case, according to court papers filed late Friday.
Comey — a frequent Trump critic — was charged in North Carolina last month. The indictment has drawn stiff criticism, and Comey’s legal team has signaled that it plans to seek dismissal of the case on the grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution.
Friday’s court filing requests that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, who was listed as the government’s lead lawyer on the Comey case, be removed from the docket. Federal prosecutor Timothy Severo was swapped in.
Petracca has also been taken off at least three other cases since last week, according to court filings, which do not specify why he is stepping aside.
CBS News has reached out to Petracca and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which is overseeing the Comey case.
NBC News was first to report on Petracca’s departure from the case.
The case against Comey, which is scheduled to go to trial in October, revolves around a May 2025 Instagram post by the former FBI chief that showed seashells forming the numbers “86 47” on a beach. Comey faced intense backlash at the time from Mr. Trump and his allies, who argued the use of the number “86” implied a desire to kill the 47th president. Merriam-Webster defines “86” as a slang term that means “throw out” or “get rid of.”
Comey quickly deleted the photo and said he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” writing in a follow-up Instagram post that he spotted the seashells on a beach walk and “assumed [they] were a political message.”
Almost a year later, federal prosecutors in North Carolina secured an indictment on one count of threatening the president’s life and one count of transmitting an interstate threat. Mr. Trump responded on social media by calling Comey a “Dirty Cop.”
Comey has denied all wrongdoing and vowed to fight the charges in court.
The indictment has drawn criticism from many legal experts, who note that the bar for proving a statement is a threat is extraordinarily high and view the charges as an attempt to punish Comey for his political opinions. Comey has been an outspoken Trump antagonist since the president fired him as FBI director in 2017.
“If you can charge somebody for arranging seashells in the sand with an ambiguous message, if that’s a threat, if that’s criminal speech, then the First Amendment is in serious jeopardy,” Pace University professor and former prosecutor Perry Carbone told CBS News earlier this month.
The charges came seven months after a separate effort by the Justice Department to prosecute Comey for allegedly lying to Congress. That indictment — which Comey’s lawyers also argued was vindictive and selective — was tossed out by a federal judge in Virginia on the grounds that the prosecutor who led the case was improperly appointed.
Attorney General Todd Blanche has denied that the North Carolina case was politically motivated, telling CBS News it was spearheaded by “local prosecutors” and “local agents.”
“I don’t even know their names,” Blanche said of the North Carolina-based federal prosecutors.