The Justice Department has indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a 2025 social media post of seashells that allegedly threatened President Donald Trump.
The new charges include “knowingly and wilfully” making a threat against the President and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, according to the indictment. A grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina, which is where Comey’s seashell photo was allegedly taken, approved the charges on Tuesday.
In a video posted on his Substack account on Tuesday, Comey defended himself against the charges.
“I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go,” Comey said. “But it’s really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Justice Department is supposed to be.”
It’s the Trump Administration’s second attempt to prosecute Comey, who has been an outspoken critic of the President since he was fired by Trump as FBI Director in 2017. The earlier indictment, which was based on allegations that Comey had lied in his 2020 congressional testimony over the FBI probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was dismissed last November after a judge ruled that the prosecutor handling the case, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed.
The new case also comes weeks after Trump dismissed Attorney General Pam Bondi, over whom he had reportedly expressed grievances that she did not aggressively pursue investigations into or failed to indict his critics. Bondi had also faced significant backlash over her department’s handling of the Epstein files, documents related to the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It also comes just days after what appeared to be the third assassination attempt against Trump.
“Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference on Tuesday. “While this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant,” Blanche added, “his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate.”
Why was Comey indicted?
The indictment centers on a photo of seashells arranged to form the shape of “86 47” that Comey posted on Instagram last May, alongside the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
At the time, the post was met with indignation from Trump officials and a large number of Republicans, who saw the image as an incitement of violence against the President. Kristi Noem, then-Homeland Security Secretary who was removed from her post in March, opened a Secret Service investigation into Comey over the post. Comey reportedly voluntarily sat for an interview with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., in May, during which he told agents that he had seen the shell arrangement while walking on the beach.
Eighty-six is used in slang to mean “to throw out” or “to refuse service to,” according to Merriam-Webster, which notes that it has been used in recent albeit rare cases to mean “to kill.” Forty-seven appears to refer to Trump, the 47th President of the U.S. Together, the numbers have been used by some on social media as a symbol to call for removing Trump from the presidency.
Read More: What Does ‘86 47’ Mean? Why James Comey Is Under Investigation Over an Instagram Post
Shortly after, Comey deleted the post and said in a follow-up, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
In an interview with Fox News last May, Trump insisted that Comey “knew exactly” what the numbers meant: “A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination.”
But prosecutors may find it challenging to prove that Comey indeed intended his post as a threat, especially given his clarification soon after. According to standards set by the Supreme Court in 2023, for something to constitute a “true threat,” which is not protected by the First Amendment, the speaker must have “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that the statement would be perceived as threatening violence.
Comey, a longtime foe of Trump
Trump has for years called for Comey’s prosecution ever since the former FBI director oversaw the bureau’s investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s first presidential campaign and Russian officials in 2016. Comey also led the FBI’s probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email at the time.
Trump fired Comey, an Obama-appointee, in 2017, less than four years into Comey’s 10-year term. Trump has accused Comey of weaponizing the justice system against him, while Trump has since publicly encouraged the Justice Department to investigate his own perceived political foes. Last September, the Justice Department charged Comey with making false statements to Congress related to disclosures to the press. Comey’s attorneys filed motions to dismiss the case, arguing that he was being vindictively and selectively targeted by Trump’s DOJ as political retribution. Those motions were not decided as the case was dismissed in November on the basis that the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed.
The Justice Department under Trump has also opened investigations into a number of his perceived adversaries, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and California Sen. Adam Schiff. In all three instances, charges have been dismissed or not been brought. Trump has also dismissed or sought to dismiss dozens of officials in firings that critics have called politically motivated. On Tuesday, a judge ruled that former federal prosecutor and Comey’s daughter Maurene Comey, who was abruptly fired last July, can challenge her dismissal in federal court. Fed Governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump tried to fire last August, is also challenging Trump’s attempted dismissal in a case before the Supreme Court.
Since Blanche took Bondi’s place in early April, the DOJ appears to have ramped up its pursuit of Trump’s agenda. Earlier this month, the Justice Department released the first report by the Weaponization Working Group, which Bondi established early into Trump’s second term with the aim of investigating “abuses of the criminal justice process.” The report alleged the Biden Justice Department had unfairly prosecuted anti-abortion protesters. The DOJ fired at least four prosecutors involved in the cases.
On Tuesday, the department also indicted a former senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and top adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci on charges of concealing federal records during the COVID-19 pandemic. Republicans have long accused Fauci and his aides of covering up key information related to the pandemic. Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci, among others, in his last act as President, as he feared “unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions” by the incoming Trump Administration.
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