The acting US attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Sunday defended new criminal charges filed against former FBI head James Comey, insisting that the case was based on more than just an Instagram post from last year.

The Department of Justice announced a two-count felony indictment against Comey on Tuesday, charging him in connection with a picture he posted on Instagram last May.

The picture displayed seashells on the beach arranged in a formation to say “86 47”. 86 is shorthand for getting rid of something, and Trump allies accused Comey of threatening violence against the president.

Comey deleted the post, apologized, and said he didn’t know that’s what the expression meant and condemned violence. Comey has said he is innocent and denies any wrongdoing.

Trump has long seen Comey as a political enemy and frequently disparaged him on social media. Legal experts, including conservative allies, have met the new charges with skepticism, seeing it as a thinly-veiled effort to punish one of Trump’s political rivals (a previous criminal case against Comey in Virginia was dismissed last year).

Blanche, however, insisted on Sunday there was more to the case.

“Rest assured that it’s not just the Instagram post that leads somebody to get indicted,” Blanche said during an interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “You prove intent with witnesses, you prove intent with documents, with materials.” Pressed by host Kristen Welker on what additional evidence there might be, Blanche declined to offer any.

“At the trial, a public trial, that will be open to the public, everybody in this country will know exactly what evidence the government has against Mr Comey,” he said.

Blanche is said to want to be permanently named attorney general and has moved aggressively ahead with cases targeting Trump’s political rivals in just the one month since he replaced Pam Bondi as the attorney general.

Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said the justice department would need to offer evidence beyond the picture to prove it was a worthwhile case.

“If this whole case is based on a picture in the sand of a North Carolina beach, it again makes no sense to me,” he said during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “It better be more than just the picture. There have to be facts and circumstances beyond that to convince me.”

Throughout the interview, Blanche also said career prosecutors and law enforcement officials had investigated the case. But experienced lawyers left the case earlier during the investigation, Bloomberg Law reported.

The prosecutor handling the case is a former New Jersey city councilman from New Jersey whose main prosecutorial experience has been in Medicaid fraud cases. W Ellis Boyle, the acting US attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, which is overseeing the case, had not been a prosecutor before being tapped for his current job last year, according to Bloomberg Law.

Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California who has also been targeted by Trump, said on Sunday he had never seen such a weak case.

“I think this case is likely to be thrown out even before it goes to a jury,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “It will absolutely be thrown out by a jury.”

Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw more US troops from Germany after stunning European leaders and some senior members of his own party by last week announcing the withdrawal of 5,000 soldiers from Germany.

The move left 30,000 US troops still in the country, according to CNN. But Trump threatened on Saturday that more cuts were coming. “We are going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” he told reporters on Saturday.

Trump’s initial move to reduce US personnel in Germany came after German chancellor Friedrich Merz said the US was being “humiliated” by Iran.

The Pentagon then announced on Friday it was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany. The decision came after a “thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground”, a spokesman said.

Speaking to students last month in Marsberg, Merz said “the Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.”

“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.”

The Republicans who chair the armed services committees in Congress, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, released a joint statement on Saturday saying they were “very concerned” by the possibility of reducing troops in Germany.

“Germany has stepped up in response to President Trump’s call for greater burden sharing, significantly increasing defense spending and providing seamless access, basing, and overflight for US forces in support of Operation Epic Fury,” they said in a statement, using the military name for the campaign against Iran. Any reduction in troops should be done in coordination with Congress and allies.

“Rather than withdrawing forces from the continent altogether, it is in the US interest to maintain a strong deterrent in Europe by moving these 5,000 US forces to the east,” they added. “Those allies there have made substantial investments to host US troops, reducing costs for the US taxpayer while strengthening Nato’s front line to help deter a far more costly conflict from ever beginning.”

Merz’s comments highlighted tensions between the US and Nato as well as European allies over the war in Iran and other foreign conflicts. A Pentagon email leaked to Reuters floated punishing Spain, which has been a loud critic of the war, and suspending it from the Nato alliance.

A Spirit Airlines pilot was given an emotional send-off into retirement by another airline after what was supposed to be his final flight was canceled amid Spirit’s sudden collapse on Saturday.

Jon Jackson had been scheduled to fly his final flight into Baltimore-Washington international airport on Saturday when the low-cost airline ceased operations after running out of cash and rescue talks with the Trump administration failed.

So instead, Jackson boarded a Southwest flight to get back to Baltimore from Fort Lauderdale. During the flight, his son Chris, a Southwest pilot, “casually mentioned” to the crew that this would have been his dad’s retirement flight, according to a Facebook post shared by Southwest, “setting into motion a plan that resulted in a proper retirement party when the flight landed in Baltimore”.

Southwest staff organized a water cannon salute over the aircraft when it arrived and Jackson was met with cheers, applause and a bottle of bubbly when he walked off the jet bridge.

A delighted Jackson gave a brief speech in the terminal, telling staff: “Very overwhelming, I can’t thank you all enough. As Spirit goes down this is a sad day, and you guys made it incredible, so thank you so much.”

Southwest’s post reads: “It was a powerful reminder of the aviation community’s ability to show respect, compassion, and solidarity when it matters most. Above all, this moment was about honoring a fellow aviator. Congratulations, and thank you for your service in the skies, Capt Jackson.”

Before its collapse, Spirit operated hundreds of daily flights on its bright yellow planes and employed some 17,000 people. But early on Saturday it announced that after 34 years in business it had “with great disappointment … started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately”.

“To our guests: all flights have been canceled, and customer service is no longer available,” the airline said. “We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our guests for many years to come.”

The company had struggled to make a deal with its creditors and secure funding to maintain operations after shuttling in and out of bankruptcy twice in recent years. But the sharp rise in jet fuel prices since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran effectively sealed its fate.

The Trump administration floated taking a 90% stake to prevent Spirit’s collapse but the company’s bondholders rebelled.