Secret Service felt pressure from administration to surveil James Comey, new documents reveal

On the night of May 15, 2025, agents at the U.S. Secret Service faced what some considered an improper and possibly illegal request from higher-ups in the administration: secretly access former FBI Director Jim Comey’s phone so they could monitor his movements.

President Donald Trump and his top aides were riled up that Thursday night that Comey had posted on social media a picture of seashells on a beach, which had been arranged to spell out the words “86 47”, according to two people briefed on the incident.  The slang phrase was a threat on the life of the 47th president, Trump’s close advisers claimed.

But some Secret Service agents and supervisors were deeply concerned that night and early the next day about that dubious claim — and the pressure they faced to surveil the former director, newly released internal records show. They argued the Service didn’t have the legal authority to surreptitiously track Comey’s phone without a warrant. Law enforcement agents could invoke emergency powers, but only if they had a reasonable belief that Comey posed an imminent threat to someone’s life.

“At the time we did not believe anyone’s life was in danger and legally it was a bad idea,” a mid-level supervisor in the Washington field office wrote in an email memorializing his handling of the request. It was one of several internal records newly released Tuesday night in court filings by Comey’s attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

But then, a top Justice Department official told them he wanted them to do it anyway, the records show.

The next day — May 16 —Secret Service agents were following that directive. They found Comey’s location by accessing his phone signal and were then trailing Comey’s car as he and his wife drove north through North Carolina toward their suburban Virginia home.

The documents, filed as part of Comey’s bid to dismiss the current charges he faces on claims of threatening Trump, shed new light on the extraordinary White House fixation on the former FBI director, a longtime Trump punching bag who the president has long sought to punish. Comey, whom Trump fired as FBI director during his first presidential term, pleaded not guilty in October to charges of lying to and obstructing Congress. Those charges were dismissed.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to discuss the details revealed in the new internal records or identify the official who urged the emergency surveillance of Comey.

“A North Carolina grand jury indicted Comey, and he’ll have his day in court like any other defendant,” the DOJ spokesman said in a statement to MS NOW.

A Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement that the agency could not comment.

“We have great respect for the judicial process,” the statement read. “Because this matter is currently pending before a federal court, any comments will be made through our official court filings.”

The debate over the legality of surveilling the former FBI director was a heated one and went late into the night on May 15 and continued into the next day, according to the records and the two people briefed on the dispute. From 7:30 p.m. until midnight on May 15, a flurry of calls and texts and instructions flew back and forth inside the Secret Service, records show. Several senior officials at headquarters worried they could regret doing what their superiors in the Trump administration wanted, the two people said.

The mid-level Secret Service supervisor who called the phone tracking a bad idea normally oversaw criminal cyber cases and was the duty supervisor that night in the Washington field office. He got instructions from a superior around 8:45 p.m. to call Comey “ASAP” and ask him to voluntarily agree to an interview at his Virginia home with agents the next day, records show. 

But he got no answer and left a voice mail. Comey called back around 9:15 pm, and agreed to the interview, but declined to say where he was at that time, the records show. 

Comey’s response — refusing to confirm his current location — led top Trump aides to push late into the night for the Secret Service’s field offices and Protective Intelligence Division, which analyzes threats to the president, to secretly surveil Comey as a potential threat, according to one of the people briefed on the dispute.

At Secret Service headquarters, some top officials agreed with the mid-level supervisor’s concern that this step wasn’t a good idea, according to the same person briefed on the debate, who asked to speak in confidence to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. Using emergency powers to track Comey’s phone, some of them argued, was a terrible idea and could come back to haunt them, the person said.

Some said it was all but impossible for Comey, then ending a beach vacation in the Outer Banks, to harm Trump. The president was then travelling to  Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and for much of the time on Air Force One, according to two sources briefed on the dispute.

In what appeared to be a stopgap measure that night, the Secret Service’s assistant director for strategic intelligence and information asked a little after 9 p.m. that agents in the “Prowler” unit go to Comey’s Virginia home to check if he was there, according to internal Secret Service notes released in Comey’s court filing. This Secret Service unit normally monitors the area around the White House when the president is in Washington.

Just after 9:30 p.m., an unidentified superior asked the mid-level supervisor on duty how fast they could send an electronic signal to locate Comey’s phone.

“I said we could do it quickly but I argued against taking this option,” the supervisor wrote in his memo documenting his discussions. “I suggested that pinging the cell phone was legally questionable.” 

The supervisor wrote that the superior agreed with his legal concern, but added: “we might anyway.”

The next day, the supervisor checked in with his office and learned from his co-workers that “the #3 guy” official at the Justice Department had told the Secret Service to use their emergency or “exigent” authority to track Comey’s phone. Furthermore, agents from other field offices were now following Comey’s car en route to Virginia. The supervisor wrote that he spoke to one colleague that Friday who said he was told to submit the paperwork to track the phone, but did so “with hesitation.”

The supervisor urged the colleague to create a document to memorialize who he had talked to and how events had unfolded..

Later that Friday, Comey agreed to travel with Secret Service agents from his Virginia home to the Washington field office to be interviewed by agents of the Protective Intelligence Division.

Meanwhile, John Bush, a top supervisor on the president’s protective detail who had been traveling with Trump in the Middle East, coordinated with the special agent in charge of the Protective Intelligence Division, Adam Daniels.  Bush said he needed a readout of Comey’s interview to give to the president and his team as soon as possible, a copy of his email and other records show.

“Thank you Adam,” Bush wrote in an email at 12:33 pm ET. “It is a hot topic on the plane and [name redacted] is very interested.”

Around the same time that Friday, the mid-level supervisor from the Washington field office got a call from a colleague in the Secret Service’s Protective Intelligence Unit asking him for any updates because “POTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes to use in his 6pm press conference.”

Bush followed up with Daniels at 7:39 p.m., his email shows: 

“Hey Adam, any updates? The [chief of staff] just asked me for any.” 

Later that evening, Daniels forwarded the summary of the Comey interview to Air Force One.

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