U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during a meeting with Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheal Martin at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 17, 2026. REUTERS_Evan Vucci
NBC News reports the rookie federal prosecutor who led the case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life has abandoned the case, and social media is rolling.
“Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing,” reports NBC News, adding that Petracca also “dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings.”
Petracca, a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey hired months ago, had considered leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two anonymous sources speaking with NBC News. But he instead remained a DOJ employee after taking a week off. NBC reports Petracca had not responded to earlier requests for comment on his employment status at the Justice Department, and did not respond to an additional requests for comment on Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Social media, however, cheered Petracca’s decision.
“Good. Because any lawyer (or anyone, really) knows this is just Trump abusing his office because he’s a vindictive monster,” posted Bulwark founder and publisher Sarah Longwell on X.
“Some lawyers do have ethics and uphold the very oath they pledged,” crowed X userattorney Tracey Gallagher.
Others were even more scornful of the Comey case Petracca formerly manned, with one X critics commenting “It's almost like this entire thing is stupid and a waste of tax payer money.”
“Trump is getting his cheeks clapped today,” another heckled, referring to an unrelated Friday judicial smackdown of the Trump administration over the president’s attempt to insert his name onto the Kennedy Center, and an additional decision undermining Trump’s creation of a controversial $1.8 billion slush fund.
Attorneys and former federal officials are already describing the DOJ’s prosecution of Comey as Trump weaponizing the DOJ against his perceived enemies — or indeed anyone who’s ever crossed him.
The charges came after Comey, the former FBI director, posted an image of seashells on a North Carolina beach, arranged in the form of the numerals “86” and “47.” Forty-seven was likely a reference to Trump, the 47th U.S. president, and “86” to an expression conveying a sense of “casting aside” commonly associated with the restaurant industry.