Comey Indicted Again Over Seashell Photo Officials Call a Threat

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina on Tuesday indicted former FBI Director James Comey on two counts of threatening President Trump, the second prosecution of Comey by the Trump Justice Department, CBS News and the Associated Press reported.

The charges stem from a photo Comey posted to Instagram in May 2025 showing seashells arranged on a beach to read “86 47,” CBS News reported. One count alleges he knowingly and willfully threatened to take the president’s life and inflict bodily harm; the other alleges he transmitted a threat to kill the president in interstate commerce. The indictment says a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances” would read the photo as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump.” Supporters of Mr. Trump read “86” as meaning to remove and “47” as his number as president, CBS News said. Comey deleted the post, writing, “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” and “I oppose violence of any kind,” according to the AP.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the case at a news conference. “Threatening the life of the president of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice,” he said, adding that Congress wrote the statute and the department charges such cases “multiple times a year,” CBS News reported. Asked how prosecutors would prove intent, Blanche said it is shown “with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself to the extent it’s appropriate,” the AP reported. U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle said Comey will get “every form of due process.”

Comey responded in a video on Substack. “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So, let’s go,” he said. His lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, said Comey “vigorously denies the charges” and that the defense will contest them and seek vindication of “the First Amendment,” CBS News reported.

The AP noted that the indictment offers no evidence that Comey knowingly threatened the president, since Comey has said the opposite, and rests on the “reasonable recipient” standard. The AP said the new case, brought months after a separate indictment of Comey was dismissed, could expose the government to claims of vindictive prosecution. A judge threw out that earlier case and one against New York Attorney General Letitia James after ruling that the prosecutor who brought them was illegally appointed, the AP reported. The AP added that Blanche, previously Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, is trying to show the president he should hold the job permanently.

The case is assigned to Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, CBS News reported, and a warrant for Comey’s arrest was issued. Comey was interviewed by Secret Service agents last May about the post, after then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said he had “just called for the assassination” of the president. Blanche said the investigation has run for about a year and remains open.