Deadline: White House 4/29/2026 | 🅼🆂🅽🅱️🅲 Breaking News Today April 29, 2026

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:02]Hi there everyone. It's four o'clock in New York. Breaking news this afternoon from the Department of Justice and its efforts to satisfy Donald Trump's insatiable appetite for political retribution. After previously trying and failing to target former director of the FBI, Jim Comey, the DOJ has secured a new indictment against one of Donald Trump's most prominent perceived enemies. We do not yet know the full details of the charges against Comey and we are waiting on a press conference from the Department of Justice scheduled for this hour. But here's what we do know. The indictment has to do with this post the former FBI director made on his Instagram account almost a year ago.

[00:00:41]Shells on a beach spelling out 8647 with the caption, "Cool shell formation on my beachwalk."

[00:00:49]The Trump administration has claimed that that post was a call for violence against Donald Trump because of the slang term 86 that usually means to get rid of something. Immediately after the post, the Secret Service had Jim Comey and his wife Patrice followed by law enforcement from their vacation home in North Carolina all the way up the eastern seabboard to their home in the Washington DC area before Jim Comey voluntarily sat for an interview. and the Justice Department dropped the matter at that time. The former director of the FBI came on this program last year and explained that he thought the seashells that he says were put there by someone else were nothing more than clever political speech, but that he immediately deleted that post when people thought that he was somehow calling for violence. Watch what he told us then.

[00:01:39]So you your position even after all of this, the Secret Service calling you and and bringing you in for questioning is that the the phrase the message on the shells was political speech and is political speech.

[00:01:54]>> Yeah. By somebody. I actually didn't think of it as political speech by me, but I thought what a clever way to express a political view. The shells were the same color for each of the letters. So different colors for the letters. It took a lot of work. somebody with artistic flare did that. And I have a hard time believing it was anybody with a a dark uh intention. And it certainly was no dark intention on my part, on my spouse's part.

[00:02:21]>> So what we have today, this revived attempt to target Jim Comey by, we should keep in mind acting attorney general Todd Blanch is coming at an important time for acting attorney general Todd Blanch. It comes weeks after Pam Bondi was fired.

[00:02:36]in some part, perhaps large part, for her failures in carrying out Donald Trump's retribution agenda. But it's not clear what new evidence, if any, exists or that Blanch has uncovered to make this case successful. Now, today's news of Comey's indictment does though feel like a quintessential Trump news cycle.

[00:02:56]One crisis wiped off the front page by another crisis. But this breaking news is part of the very same slow motion collision that we've been covering for Dec. decade now between Trump and those who dare to use their First Amendment right to criticize him. Donald Trump is locked in a cycle right now of political collapse held up by political retribution. And behind it all is a near obsessive whole of government campaign designed to stifle and punish speech that Trump does not like. Make no mistake, Jim Comey is being punished today for speaking out eight years ago about Trump's efforts to politicize the FBI while he was president the first time. Jimmy Kimmel is being attacked today for telegraphing Donald Trump's frailties. Tish James spoke through her legal filings the truth about Trump or being a fraud. So Trump sought to prosecute her. Law firms were attacked for standing with Donald Trump's political opponents. So Trump punished them. Universities have been attacked for creating safe spaces for criticizing administration priorities. So they too have been brought to heal. Artists have been purged from the Kennedy Center and replaced with cronies. Winners and losers have been picked in big media based on their political alliances. The list goes on and on and on. And every day they want us to think it's a new story. But it is the same story. It is the oldest Trump story. And at its core, and interestingly, perhaps the reason Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly are getting off the Trump train and stepping away from Donald Trump is because the truth of it is that Donald Trump is waging an all-out war on the First Amendment and on free speech.

[00:04:43]That is where we begin today. Former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI and national security and intelligence analyst Michael Fineberg is back with us. Also joining us, the former director of the CIA and our senior national security and intelligence analyst, John Brennan's here. Also joining us, senior investigative reporter, Carol Lenig. Um, let me start with you, Director Brennan, because the reality is there is a similar zeal to punish you for exercising your doing more than exercising your First Amendment rights, for doing your job as the then director of the CIA. Um, what is it like to sort of watch this news come across the it's not a wire anymore, but come across our devices?

[00:05:29]>> Well, Nicole, an overused term is appalling. I find it appalling. Jim Comey served as a US attorney and the deputy attorney general for President George W. Bush. He served as the director of FBI for President Barack Obama. It is absurd to think that Jim Comey would be advocating violence against anyone, much less a president of the United States. I served with Jim Comey during the last years of the Obama administration. Uh he is somebody who I think served his country with integrity, with professionalism, and with determination to make sure that the rule of law was going to be followed. And so as you pointed out, I think there has been a litany of these efforts over the past number of years by past year and a half by Donald Trump to you know um exact revenge against some of his uh perceived uh political adversaries. So uh I feel very very dismayed that Jim Comey is going through this and has to go through more of it. Uh I am in that crowd of folks who has been targeted by Donald Trump. Uh and it just shows just how much you know the Department of Justice has fallen. I was listening earlier today to the remarks of Queen Elizabeth when she addressed the joint session of Congress back in the 1950s.

[00:06:50]And one of her lines was that we should never take the ideals of democracy for granted. And the the rule of law and the the use of the justice system is one of those real institutions and hallmarks of democratic principles. And it's so unfortunate that you know over the course of so many years and I guess we were taking that rule of law and the department of justice's efforts for granted but obviously we cannot now and it's so unfortunate that individuals like Todd Blanch who had a very you know respectable reputation before joining ranks with Donald Trump is willing to appease Donald Trump by doing these things against individuals who serve their country, I think admirably and with noble distinction.

[00:07:39]>> I want to be clear, we are not here because Matt Gates has been indicted, but Matt Gates in February of 2024 posted this with the term 86. Quote, "We've now 86 McCarthy McDaniel McConnell, better days are ahead."

[00:07:53]Carol, um, you do, I understand, have the indictment. Um, tell us what you're learning.

[00:08:00]Yeah, it was just filed moments ago, Nicole, and forgive me for looking down at my phone during some of this. Um, Comey is charged with two federal counts of crimes and they are um first making specific threats against the president and his successors and then also um making threats uh across interstate commerce. And um I just want to say that this is filed as we wrote a few hours ago in the Eastern District of New York, which had an open investigation basically hours after Jim Comey posted this picture on or around May 15th, 2025 on his Instagram page. Um, as you know, Nicole, he pretty quickly withdrew and took down this picture, wanting to make clear to people that he thought it might be political speech by someone, pretty clever political speech, but he did not want anyone to infer that he had any malevolent or violent intention or or was trying to incite any violence. He was interviewed by the Secret Service as he drove home from after he drove home from his vacation in North Carolina back to his home in Virginia. The Protective Intelligence Division, which chases down anybody who is making threats online about the president, often goes out to places after a threats made in a bar, after a threats made online, after a threat is made at the gates of the White House, interviews those individuals. And that's what they did with Jim Comey. And these are the charges that are resulting today out of the Eastern District of North Carolina.

[00:09:43]>> Um, the first time you said Eastern District of New York, I just want to make sure that you've got what I've got in front of you. The Eastern District of North Carolina, right? Um, yes. I I'm uncomfortable to even read this, but this is an indictment, so I I will. Um, >> Michael Fineberg, uh, count one on or about May 15, 2025 in the Eastern District of North Carolina. of the defendant. Jim Comey did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of and inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States in that he publicly posted a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out 8647 in which a reasonable recipient who's familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States. Um, I mean, again, Matt Gates posted, "We've 86 to McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell, better days are ahead." Is there any reasonable interpretation that Matt Gates meant we'd killed them? I mean, is this is this in law enforcement an accepted phrase that is associated with threats of death?

[00:10:49]>> No. I actually first learned the phrase when I was working the door at a bar in Chicago uh shortly after I graduated college where we would use it to refer to ejecting unruly customers. So when I saw Jim Comey's post on Instagram um from last year, I simply assumed it was a reference to removing the president from office. It is a very large leap to claim that that is a threat of violence.

[00:11:20]And because of that, I don't want the phrasing I'm about to use to make light of how malevolent and destructive of constitutional norms this justice department is being with this indictment.

[00:11:35]But this is the single dumbest charging decision I have ever seen in my entire law enforcement career or in my even longer career as an attorney. This is the definition of bad faith. As Director Brennan noted, Jim Comey was a career DOJ and FBI official dedicated to upholding the Constitution and enforcing the law. But what's a little bit lesser known, although he talks about it in his book, is he and his brother were terrorized during a home invasion as children. The notion that somebody who went through what he did and served his country in the positions he did would ever inflict or even imply that he was going to inflict violence on another human being is beyond ludicrous.

[00:12:34]I want to play you some of Jim Comey in his own words when I asked him um why he had faith that that in the end um sort of the institutions would hold.

[00:12:50]>> Do you worry that his people will not treat you fairly now that you're under scrutiny?

[00:12:57]>> Sure. But we live in a realitybased world where people if they're going to make accusations have to make them in front of judges, have to put evidence forward, have to swear that things are true. I believe in our judiciary. I believe in that that one remaining leg of our three-legged stool, that independent judiciary is alive and well and gives me great comfort.

[00:13:19]>> Is that what you think will backs stop whatever comes at you from the Trump Justice Department?

[00:13:26]>> Sure. I I don't wouldn't expect anything to come at me from the shell business, but anything that did come at me if I get get more audits, more investigations, yes, our saving grace, we still have a leg on our stool. If we lose that, I don't know where we are, but we have judges appointed by all different presidents of different parties who believe in the rule of law.

[00:13:48]And if you come into their courtroom, heaven help you if you're not telling the truth. That still exists in this country and should be a source of great comfort.

[00:13:57]So, what he's referring to there, Director Brennan, is um an IRS audit that he and um you'd have to believe in a whole lot of coincidences to think it was coincidence that that he and his his former um deputy uh Mr. McCabe also um received from the IRS. Andrew McCabe and and Jim Comey um during Trump's first presidency had forensic audits by the IRS that cost them thousands of dollars to go through. There was not any underpayment found. Um we know of the two attempts in the Eastern District of Virginia to indict him. Um this is the third that we know about. It's also been reported that um that Comey is under investigation as part of um I believe as part of the grand conspiracy delusions in in Florida um where they're also interested in you. The obsession with Comey and the the public record of the audits and the two failed attempts to indict him that resulted in the illegal appointment of Lindseay Hallan. How does that play into one's defense if and as Comey said in his own words, quote, "The independent judiciary is alive and well and it gives me great comfort."

[00:15:16]>> Well, I think it's clear that there's a fair amount of malicious prosecutions that are going forward. And as we all know, a grand jury is presented um the argument by the Department of Justice representative at that grand jury. And it's a very one-sided representation of the facts, which is why, you know, as they say, you can indict a ham sandwich, the grand jury, because again, it's a one-sided representation of at least what the Department of Justice says happened. So, I think what Jim is relying on is that once there is a full airing of this, whether it be in a court or in front of a judge, that reality will take over and the absurdity of these allegations, I think, will be revealed. But the intention I think of the administration and this department of justice and its leadership is to harass is to um cause great harm you know financially reputationally and so on to the individuals. I think they realize that they're never going to get a conviction in these cases but again their intention is to do everything possible to punish those who had the audacity either as you said before to do their jobs when they were in government or to take issue with Donald Trump publicly. So again, I'm sure that Jim Comey is fully confident that at the end of the day, he will be fully exonerated from any of these allegations, but to get there is going to be challenging and it's challenging for many of us.

[00:16:43]>> Um I want to um share or sort of add to um your extensive reporting about this Department of Justice, Carol, something an item from today's New York Times. Uh they write this, Todd Blanch targets Trump's enemies amid jocking to lead the Justice Department. quote Todd Blanch.

[00:16:59]The acting attorney general is doing what he can as quickly as he can to shed the acting label. Blanch is striving to silence critics on the right. Uh with a conspicuous salvo of actions to demonstrate progress on the president's priorities, among them payback against Trump's adversaries at Blanch's urging, the Justice Department is moving ahead with investigations into several high-profile targets. Our colleague Lisa Rubin writes that today Reutder, CNN, and Fox reported that DOJ and the FBI executed search warrants on 20 businesses in Minneapolis as part of DOJ's social services fraud investigation. In a Maryland federal court, DOJ indicted a former aid to Anthony Fouchy on grounds that he conspired to destroy government records.

[00:17:42]Um, this is someone doing a lot of things really quickly.

[00:17:49]um with the obvious uh coordination on a timeline of being uh given a try out. I guess he's the acting attorney general who very much wants to be the actual attorney general.

[00:18:04]>> Yes. Much of the many of the steps that acting attorney general Todd Blanch has taken um really starting two weeks ago have been a hard press audition for this job. Um starting with a a news conference where he said, you know, he hoped um to serve the president and and said, "I love you, sir." in reference to the president. he's kind of led the way in the narrative of the ballroom. Let's let's not just put aside put aside what uh John Brennan properly described as kind of these these nutty cases without evidence that are being pushed forward.

[00:18:46]There's also in in addition to what appear to be really vindictive prosecutions, selective ones, vindictive against people he doesn't like, uh Blanch is also taking up the cause of the president at every step after the shooting where Todd Blanch and I were both dinner guests. um uh forgive me, the shooting and scuffle, shooting by officers and the breach by a gunman trying to get into the ballroom and uh kill and assassinate Trump and other Trump administration officials. Blanch took to the podium to explain um the president's argument for a White House new ballroom was completely vindicated and had to be endorsed by the court. He asked for the foes of that ballroom construction to drop their uh objections because it was clear in his in his argument that the shooting made it obvious we had to have this White House new White House ballroom that the president is uh pretty fixated fixated on. So everything the president likes, Todd Blanch seems to like and is putting into overdrive to accomplish it.

[00:19:53]Um it it is it is stunning and and again I'm just struck by how old this story is, right? Um someone sees an opportunity to climb this ladder which is like Trump's ballroom design with staircases to nowhere. Um and they act in a way that um Trump folks have been acting for the better part of a decade.

[00:20:14]Uh I'm going to ask all of you to stick around. We do expect to hear from acting attorney general Todd Blanch this hour.

[00:20:21]also ahead for us in the hour uh standing up to Donald Trump from Comey to Brennan to Jimmy Kimmel to anti-ICE protesters around the country to democratically elected officials how people are doing their part to fight back against Trump and the bullying tactics. One of those voices and also one of the loudest and most successful ones who has pushed back in these 15 months, Governor JB Pritsker will be our guest coming up. To that point, we'll tell you about the latest move by Trump's FCC to silence Jimmy Kimell today. We have all those stories and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[00:21:01]We're all back and digesting this breaking news. Michael Fineberg, um Tulsi Gabbard said that at the time that this was in the news, at the time that we interviewed Jim Comey, that quote Comey should be put in jail for the post. Um we know the optics that they hunger for. or what do you expect is happening right now behind the scenes?

[00:21:21]>> Um, it's difficult to say. You know, the first time that Comey was indicted, there were a lot of rumors in the Bureau alumni community that the leadership of the organization very much wanted to do a traditional service of an arrest warrant and a perp walk. And a number of agents supposedly refused to do that.

[00:21:46]One of them was fired to set an example, but the decision was made to allow him to self-surrender.

[00:21:55]Um, Lindseay Halligan, my understanding is, was dragged through the coals by the administration for allowing that to happen. So, I strongly suspect that Todd Blanch is going to take a more aggressive tone. I mean, the indictment's secure. Um, I don't even know necessarily that it was the FBI that would have sworn out this indictment or presented evidence. It very well just could have been the Secret Service. Um but clearly the organizations in the federal law enforcement sphere are taking their marching orders based not on what is the law and what is the reasonable action needed to execute on it but rather what is going to make our audience of one happy and that's true for Todd Blanch it's true for Cash Patel it's true for Mark Wayne Mullen um none of these people are going to stand up for the rule of law and none of them are going to stand up for constitutional norms. None of them are even going to motion or faint at doing the right thing if doing so is going to upset Trump. So I think what we're going to see is whatever the president wants.

[00:23:11]>> Carol, um I read the Matt Gates post.

[00:23:14]We've now 86 McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell, better days are ahead for the Republican party. Do we know if the administration scrubbed their own insiders to see if this restaurant term was ever deployed on a t-shirt or any merch sold by any of Trump's political action committees?

[00:23:34]>> I have not personally done that, but I'll tell you why I haven't, Nicole. Um, to Mike Fineberg's point, the standard for bringing this charge, and when I say bringing, I mean going to a grand jury and presenting it is that you have a reasonable basis. You have a good faith belief that you'll be able to sustain this conviction and follow through at trial. And this doesn't really meet the reasonable test that James Comey in posting a picture of some shells with a message intended to incite violence and inflict violence on the president of the United States and that he was engaged in transmitting a violent threat through interstate commerce, which is the other charge. Just as when the government claimed that he had lied intentionally to Congress and prosecutors concluded there was not a good faith basis to believe they could bring a conviction and sustain it at trial. Here we have a grand jury charge that's been obtained, an indictment that's been obtained without that reasonable person standard.

[00:24:46]I also, if you don't mind, Nicole, I'd like to also mention something you didn't ask about, which is the arrest warrant. There has been an arrest warrant issued on the docket while we were I think in break or at the end of the last panel when we were talking and it is sealed and so I can't tell you much beyond that. But what I have heard from sources is back to John and Michael's point about the audience of one is that the audience of one wants a perp. He wants James Comey um basically, you know, arrested on camera um arms behind his back, cuffed and walked in the courthouse again with cameras rolling. Maximum sort of um embarrassment and humiliation. And we'll see what that sealed arrest warrant says. But that's something that Comey's folks are preparing for the wish of the president to see the former FBI director that he praised so much at the beginning of his first term um again humiliated on camera.

[00:25:54]Director Brennan, I keep thinking of your global um network of sources and relationships through your storied career, and I wonder if all the people who counseledled King Charles not to come to America while Trump was president are saying, "See, Donald Trump is doing the most banana Republic thing today while you're all over uh Capitol Hill, while you were at the White House.

[00:26:17]This looks like you were um you know, eating cake uh while he burned down America's democracy." How does America look around the world on a day like today?

[00:26:27]>> Well, I think um the way that uh the king spoke to the American people, spoke to Congress, it stands in stark contrast to the language and the rhetoric that Donald Trump uses. uh the king was I think just the the epitome of decency and dignity and talked about the things that really are important uh to our collective security whether it be the transatlantic alliance or NATO or the environment and other types of things.

[00:26:55]So I think the people around the globe are just shaking their heads just in wonderment about how the United States has just shifted so rapidly from what it was in terms of the bull work of democratic principles and uh countering all the the the anti-democratic forces around the globe to what it is today.

[00:27:17]And you know, getting back to sort of Todd Blanch is going to be appearing shortly. And I can understand the egos in Washington and people who have ambitions and trying to get ahead and maybe get appointments, but I can't understand why someone like Todd Blanch would be willing to destroy individuals like James Comey and destroy his his family and do everything possible just to appease Donald Trump. I I I just doesn't doesn't Todd Blanch have a conscience or have some ethical, you know, standards or whatever, but it seems as though so many of these individuals are willing to just trash others, including, you know, public servants, civil servants who have served this country over the course of many decades. That's a thing that I just cannot understand the mean-spiritedness and the the nastiness of these individuals and what they're doing to fellow American citizens. Well, I think I think conscience is trumped um by ego and we'll watch that. Now, >> a grand jury sitting in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned an indictment against James Comey on two counts. The first count is that on or about May 15th of last year, he knowingly and willfully making a threat to take the life of and to inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States. Count two, same day, May 15th, 2025, that the defendant, James Comey, knowingly and willfully transmitting in Interstate Commerce a communication that contained a threat to kill the president of the United States.

[00:28:47]Both of these counts carry a maximum term of imprisonment of of 10 years.

[00:28:53]Um, so I think it's fair to say that threatening the life of anybody is dangerous and potentially a crime.

[00:29:03]Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice.

[00:29:10]Over the past year, this department has charged dozens of cases involving threats against all sorts of individuals. We take these seriously, every single one of them.

[00:29:25]For example, just today in the Northern District of Florida, there was a guilty plea from an individual who threatened multiple political leaders, including President Trump. In the Eastern District of North Carolina, where this case was indicted earlier today, there are multiple threats cases very similar to this one, including one where the defendant plead guilty recently to threatening former President Biden.

[00:29:49]Another one that's scheduled to go to trial this summer, another one indicted, an individual was divided was indicted for threatening uh Tom H. Homeman.

[00:30:00]I say that to say that while this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute.

[00:30:18]I want to take a moment to to thank the hardworking members of the FBI who investigated this case over the past 11 months or so. the United States Secret Service, who also assisted in this investigation, and the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, led by United States Attorney Ellis Bole, who's standing to my right. This was an investigation that remains ongoing that's been ongoing for about a year.

[00:30:46]Um, and and that's all we're going to say about it today. I will let the US Attorney Bole speak now and then and after that, Director Patel. Thank you.

[00:31:00]Thank you, Mr. Attorney General.

[00:31:03]Earlier today, a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned a true bill indicting Mr. James Comey with committing two felonies.

[00:31:14]Count one.