Top Comey Prosecutor Parroted Trump on Way to Targeting His Foe

Ellis Boyle, the top federal prosecutor in eastern North Carolina charging former FBI Director James Comey with allegedly threatening the president’s life, has emulated President Donald Trump’s style throughout his nine months on the job.

Boyle wears Trump’s hallmark red ties, mimics the double thumbs up in photos, and ends his emails with, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” echoing the president’s social media sign-offs. He peppers press releases with the same sort of charged language, like catching “thugs” and “bad hombres,” that Trump uses on Truth Social.

The former medical malpractice lawyer surely caught Trump’s attention with his indictment of Comey, long one of the president’s top political foes, whom he has publicly pressed the Justice Department to prosecute.

Boyle’s timing somewhat surprised lawyers familiar with the case who expected him to wait to seek the indictment until after he got confirmed as US attorney by the Senate. The night before his office secured the Comey indictment, Boyle was included in a package of executive branch nominees teed up for a Senate floor vote.

His ultimate ambition, people close to the office speculate, may be another Senate-confirmed job: replacing his father, Terrence Boyle, a Ronald Reagan-appointed judge who has served on the Eastern District of North Carolina bench for 42 years. Such a nomination is more likely should he succeed where others failed in prosecuting Comey.

“Not only does the president make public statements about people he wants prosecuted but he appears to reward officials who respond to his wishes and punish those who don’t,” said Jeffrey Bellin, a criminal law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School who’s researched the second Trump administration’s politicized prosecutions. “While prosecutors are supposed to ignore these kinds of incentives, it is inevitable that some will not.”

Some people who know Boyle said his Trump parroting isn’t purely an act. He saluted Trump in his introductory meeting for staff, several people said. While he lacks the name recognition, he’s one of the most MAGA of all 93 US attorneys, said an administration official.

“U.S. Attorney Boyle is a tested litigator who has the full support of the Justice Department,” DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said in a statement. “National reporters should spend more time covering the great work of his office to restore law and order and keep North Carolinians safe.”

Staffing Challenges

The former Army captain, who’d never been a criminal prosecutor before taking his current post displayed his stone-faced disposition for a wider audience when standing on stage April 28 with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.

Their announcement of criminal charges stemming from Comey’s social media post of a sea shell formation, “86 47,” have been widely criticized by lawyers panning it as a new low in the Justice Department’s cases involving Trump’s perceived enemies.

Boyle acknowledged in Senate nomination disclosures that 99% of his private practice involved civil proceedings, with 52% of that work in state court. Since arriving in August, he’s impressed people in his office by working hard to learn the criminal docket, including by attending trainings and trials.

Still, the only other name on the Comey indictment is a junior assistant US attorney, Matthew Petracca, whose background as a state Medicaid fraud attorney also gives him minimal federal criminal experience.

Petracca only got involved after more experienced lawyers in the office investigating the sea shells post at earlier stages left the case, according to people familiar with the matter, who like others spoke anonymously about sensitive deliberations.

Last fall, Boyle loaned two of the office’s more seasoned and newly promoted prosecutors to the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia to take over her ultimately unsuccessful indictment of Comey on separate false statements allegations.

At least one of the lawyers who worked on the Virginia case was also among those investigating Comey at some point in the North Carolina threats matter, the people added.

They returned from their Virginia assignment after a judge dismissed the case. Following a few weeks back in Raleigh, both prosecutors left Boyle’s office for private practice, ahead of the threats case going to the grand jury. It’s not clear if Boyle will staff the case with additional prosecutors, as Comey’s defense team prepares to request a dismissal.

Distinguished Lineage

Boyle comes from a family of well known North Carolina conservative lawyers. His grandfather, Thomas Ellis, was a Republican political operative credited with the rise of former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

His father, who’s sat on the bench since Boyle was 7, has shaped his penchant for defying convention, said people familiar with both of them.

When the younger Boyle took over as interim US attorney last year, after previously serving in the district’s civil division from 2010 to 2013, he stood out for employing colorful language. In his office’s prepared statements, Boyle has repeatedly called convicted drug dealers and violent offenders, “big shark bad boys.”

The prose resembles how he speaks, said several people familiar with his style.

In a recent statement promoting a prison sentence for someone convicted of Covid fraud, Boyle said, “Greedy grifters descended like crabs to pick away these funds for illicit gain. Do what your mamma taught you, don’t steal.”