The lead prosecutor tasked with overseeing former FBI Director James Comey’s prosecution stemming from his post of seashells<\/a> that the Justice Department claims amounted to a threat against President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the case, according to a court filing.<\/p>\n Matthew Petracca was the lone prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina assigned to the case when it was unsealed late last month.<\/p>\n On Friday evening, however, the Justice Department filed a notice with the court indicating that Petracca has been replaced by assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo.<\/p>\n Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey speaks at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics’ JFK Jr. Forum in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 24, 2020.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Charles Krupa\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The department did not include any explanation for the move in the high-profile case.<\/p>\n Comey’s attorneys are expected to make a vigorous push to have the case dismissed before it can go to trial through a variety of legal challenges.<\/p>\n A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.<\/p>\n Comey was charged with threatening to kill Trump by posting a photo on Instagram<\/a> of seashells on a beach arranged in the numbers “86 47.” Citing the slang meaning of “86” as to “nix” or “get rid” of something, allies of the president allege that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, who is the 47th president.<\/p>\n Following backlash over the post, Comey removed the photo from Instagram and said he was unaware that the post could be associated with violence.<\/p>\n Critics of Trump say the indictment is another effort by the administration to punish the\u00a0president’s perceived enemies<\/a>\u00a0after a judge last year\u00a0threw out<\/a>\u00a0an indictment against Comey on unrelated charges.<\/p>\n At a press conference announcing the charges last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued that Comey’s post crossed the line between First Amendment-protected speech and speech that warrants prosecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Comey’s trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 21.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The lead prosecutor tasked with overseeing former FBI Director James Comey’s prosecution stemming from his post of seashells that the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_animmysite_disable_animation":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/486263ed-ac0f-47c0-bcc7-fcc96eecfb1f\/james-comey-1-ap-gmh-260520_1779308560849_hpMain_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/486263ed-ac0f-47c0-bcc7-fcc96eecfb1f\/james-comey-1-ap-gmh-260520_1779308560849_hpMain.jpg?w=375)
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