By Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand, Katelyn Polantz, Emily Condon, CNN

(CNN) — Former FBI Director James Comey surrendered Wednesday to law enforcement before his first appearance in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Comey, who is charged with making a threat against President Donald Trump by photographing seashells on a North Carolina beach, was allowed to leave court with no conditions of release after a brief hearing that lasted less than 10 minutes.

“I don’t see why they’d be necessary this time,” Judge William Fitzpatrick said, noting that there were no conditions set when the Justice Department first attempted to bring a case against Comey last year.

Comey’s latest indictment, which was brought Tuesday, comes as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has picked up the pace in bringing cases that the president has publicly jockeyed for.

The new case represents a reinvigorated effort to satisfy Trump’s demands to investigate his foes, including Comey, who he sees as a key leader in the perceived effort to “weaponize” the justice system against him.

Comey is now charged with making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.

The charges were brought in the Eastern District of North Carolina, but Comey’s first appearance was in a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia as it’s closer to his home.

On Tuesday, Comey entered and exited the courtroom through a side entrance used by defendants. He wore a dark suit and did not speak during the hearing.

He was not asked to enter a plea on Wednesday.

Comey’s attorneys, however, told the judge they plan to file motions accusing the Justice Department of selectively and vindictively prosecuting their client.

No date has been set for Comey’s arraignment or first appearance in North Carolina.

The US Attorney from the Eastern District of North Carolina, Ellis Boyle, who will be overseeing this case as it moves to the federal court in New Bern, NC, was in the courtroom Wednesday.

The threat

Tuesday’s indictment is centered on a picture Comey posted on social media last May, of shells on a beach writing out the numbers “86 47.” He wrote in the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

Almost immediately following his post, Republicans and administration officials began criticizing Comey for what they said amounted to a death threat against President Donald Trump.

When used as slang, the number 86 can refer to getting rid of or tossing something out. Trump is currently the 47th president.

“This is not going anywhere. This is clearly not a punishable threat,” Eugene Volokh, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who specializes in First Amendment law, told CNN Tuesday.

This is the second time that Trump’s Justice Department brought charges against Comey.

In September of last year, the Justice Department first brought charges against Comey, accusing him of lying to Congress over leaks to the press.

The case was dismissed late last year by a federal judge who found that the interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia had been improperly appointed, having skirted approval from the Senate.

This story was updated with additional information from the hearing.

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By Aileen Graef, CNN

(CNN) — A Secret Service officer saw a shotgun-wielding suspect fire his weapon toward the stairs that led to a hotel ballroom where President Donald Trump, members of his Cabinet and some of the nation’s top journalists had gathered Saturday for the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, federal prosecutors alleged in a new court filing Wednesday.

The filing, which laid out prosecutors’ argument for keeping the suspect held as he awaits trial, offered a more detailed timeline of the shooting than previously known, along with a thorough account of the weaponry the suspect had amassed.

Prosecutors argued there was “no combination of conditions that will reasonably assure the community’s safety” if the suspect were to be released, pointing to his extensive preparations and the possibility — avoided by “good fortune” — that he could have killed people and inflicted serious damage.

They called his plot one of “extreme political violence.”

“The defendant’s choice of targets demonstrates the deeply dangerous nature of his conduct,” the prosecutors wrote. “Attempted murder is always a serious crime, but when the intended victim is the President of the United States, as well as other high-ranking members of the U.S. government, the potential consequences are far reaching.”

A month of preparation

Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old from California, is charged with attempting to assassinate the president and related counts in connection with the shooting. He has not entered a plea in the case yet, and his attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors alleged that he came to Washington, DC, after a lengthy cross-country train journey, eventually approaching the Washington Hilton ballroom on Saturday night with what they described as a “veritable armament.” That included a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, a .38 caliber pistol, multiple knives and daggers and a significant amount of ammunition for reloading, according to the new filing.

By federal prosecutors’ account, Allen’s planning began weeks before the dinner. On April 6, a little over a month after Trump announced he was attending, Allen searched for information on the event, then booked himself a two-night stay at the Washington Hilton during the weekend it was to take place, they say.

Federal prosecutors alleged he researched the dinner, the schedule, the host and expected attendees.

Four days before the attack, on April 21, Allen departed Los Angeles on an Amtrak passenger train which took him to Chicago, according to the court filing. On April 23, the filing says, he boarded a second train to Washington, DC.

During his journey from Chicago to the nation’s capital, Allen passed time reading an article in a DC newspaper titled “Social Scene: Your Guide to the 2026 White House Correspondents Dinner Weekend,” according to the court filing. He arrived at Union Station on April 24, taking the metro to Dupont Circle and checking into the Hilton — which was hosting the dinner — at approximately 3:15 p.m., the filing says.

The day of the dinner

On the day of the dinner, according to the filing, Allen left his room several times and searched for the president’s schedule on his phone.

At approximately 8:03 p.m., Allen took a photo of himself reflected in his hotel room mirror, showing weapons strapped to his body, the filing says.

After checking the president’s schedule one last time, Allen left his hotel room at approximately 8:15 p.m., the filing says. About 12 minutes later, Allen was watching live videos on media websites showing the pr

By John Fritze

(CNN) — The Supreme Court appeared ready to back President Donald Trump’s push to end temporary deportation protections for potentially millions of foreign nationals who come from countries enduring war and natural disasters.

Temporary Protected Status, which allows an administration to “designate” certain countries facing strife so migrants can remain and work in the United States.

The court’s conservative wing focused not on whether Trump violated federal law or the equal protection clause by ending TPS for Haitians and Syrians but almost entirely on whether a federal court may review such decisions. The law gives the administration broad discretion in turning on and off the designation.

The attorney for the Syrian TPS beneficiaries argued that while a final decision about TPS can’t be reviewed under the law, the process that officials used to get there is. And that process, the attorney said, was influenced entirely by Trump’s “racial animus” directed at Haitians, Syrians and others.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with several others, questioned the rationale that the law barred only the final determination of whether to apply TPS.

Ahilan Arulanantham, who is arguing on behalf of the migrants, said that he believed people should still be able to have “some faith in government” to conduct a thorough and lawful review.

As part of his crackdown on legal and illegal immigration, Trump has ended — rather than extended — TPS for all 13 countries whose designations were set to expire.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the situation on the ground in Syria is different than it was when the country was designated for TPS. A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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