A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted former FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday over a May 2025 Instagram post that showed seashells arranged on a beach to spell "86 47", a message prosecutors say amounted to a threat against President Trump. The two-count indictment marks the second time the 65-year-old Comey has faced criminal charges under the current administration, and it carries far graver implications than the first case, which a federal judge dismissed on procedural grounds.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges at a news conference, framing the prosecution as consistent with how the Department of Justice handles threats against any sitting president. The New York Post reported that the indictment charges Comey with "knowingly and willfully making a threat to take the life of and to inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States" and, in a separate count, with "knowingly and willfully transmitting an interstate commerce communication that contained a threat to kill the president of the United States."
Comey deleted the post and later claimed the message was "totally innocent." His lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, vowed to fight the charges in court. But the Department of Justice clearly sees it differently, and a grand jury agreed.
The image at the center of the case appeared on Comey's Instagram account on May 15, 2025. It depicted seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers "86 47." In restaurant and hospitality slang, "86" means to remove, cancel, or get rid of something. "47" is the number of the current president. Comey took the post down, but not before it drew widespread attention and sharp criticism.
President Trump himself weighed in forcefully. The Washington Times reported that Trump said: "A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear."
Comey offered a different explanation. He told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace the post was "totally innocent" and described the charges as "crazy." In a video statement posted on his Substack shortly after the charges were unsealed, Comey struck a defiant tone.
"I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let's go."
He added: "My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way."
His lawyer Fitzgerald issued a formal response calling the charges baseless and pledging to contest them in court.
"Mr. Comey vigorously denies the charges contained in the Indictment filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina. We will contest these charges in the courtroom and look forward to vindicating Mr. Comey and the First Amendment."
Blanche, who has taken an increasingly visible role in directing Justice Department priorities under the current administration, pushed back against any suggestion that Comey's name or political profile influenced the decision to prosecute. He pointed to a recent case in which a defendant pleaded guilty to threatening former President Biden.
"There are multiple threats cases very similar to this one, including one where the defendant pled guilty recently to threatening former President Biden. I say that to say that while this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute."
That framing matters. Blanche was signaling that the DOJ views Comey's post the same way it would view any social media threat against a president, regardless of party. Whether a jury agrees will depend on how the government proves intent and how the defense deploys a First Amendment argument.
Blanche has been a central figure in the administration's broader legal strategy. He recently took direct control of the DOJ Weaponization Working Group, consolidating authority over investigations into the prior administration's conduct.
Breitbart reported that each of the two charges against Comey carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. That potential sentence underscores the seriousness with which federal law treats threats against a sitting president, even when the accused claims the statement was not intended as a call to violence.
This is not Comey's first trip through the federal criminal justice system since Trump returned to office. On September 25 of last year, Comey was indicted on charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice. That case was tied to testimony Comey gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 30, 2020.
The earlier indictment hinged on an exchange between Comey and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Cruz confronted Comey with sworn statements he had made years earlier, and contrasted them with what former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had said publicly.
Cruz reminded Comey that on May 3, 2017, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had asked him point blank whether he had ever served as an anonymous source for news reports about the Trump or Clinton investigations. Comey answered "Never." Grassley then asked whether Comey had authorized anyone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source. Comey answered "No."
But Cruz pointed out that McCabe had "publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it." Cruz then asked Comey: "Who's telling the truth?"
A separate DOJ watchdog investigation in 2018 into Wall Street Journal leaks found that Comey "agreed it was a 'good' idea" to share information with media about the Clinton email scandal, based on McCabe's account. Comey also confessed in 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had asked his friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor, to disseminate memos about Trump's purported instructions to shut down an investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser.
Despite that factual backdrop, the first case never reached trial. A federal judge threw it out roughly two months after the indictment, ruling that then-interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan had been improperly appointed and "had no lawful authority" to secure the indictment. The government had filed the charges just days before the five-year statute of limitations was set to expire on September 30, 2025.
The procedural dismissal left the underlying questions about Comey's testimony unresolved. It also left the administration without a conviction, and Comey free to resume his public commentary. Just the News noted that this new indictment represents the second time Comey has been charged during the current administration, underscoring the escalating legal jeopardy he faces.
Comey's long-running conflict with Trump is well documented. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, just six days after Comey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Comey then engineered the leak of his own memos through Richman, a move he acknowledged under oath was designed to prompt the appointment of a special counsel.
That history gives both sides ammunition. The defense will argue the prosecution is political payback. The government will argue that a former FBI director who posts "86 47" on social media knows exactly what that language conveys, and that intent can be inferred from the context.
The case also arrives at a moment of heightened concern about threats against the president. The indictment came just days after a gunman attempted to storm the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday. Trump survived two earlier attempts on his life during the 2024 campaign, one at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and another at a Florida golf course.
The administration has made clear it views the current threat environment as serious. Blanche's statement that "threatening the life of the president of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice" was not hedged or qualified.
The DOJ under Blanche has also been pursuing aggressive enforcement across multiple fronts, from fraud crackdowns to national security cases, signaling a department that intends to use its authority rather than defer.
Several questions remain unanswered. The indictment's case number and specific statutory citations have not been publicly detailed. The precise legal standard the government must meet to prove that a social media post constitutes a "true threat", as opposed to protected political speech, will be central to the case. The Supreme Court addressed that distinction in Counterman v. Colorado in 2023, holding that the government must show a defendant had some subjective understanding that the statement could be perceived as threatening.
Comey's defense will likely lean hard on the First Amendment and on his claim that he deleted the post once he realized how it could be interpreted. Fitzgerald's statement explicitly referenced vindicating "Mr. Comey and the First Amendment."
Meanwhile, the broader legal landscape around the administration's use of the Justice Department continues to draw scrutiny. Courts have pushed back on some executive actions, as seen when the D.C. Circuit overruled a federal judge's contempt probe tied to Trump deportation flights. The judiciary remains an active check, and Comey is betting his freedom on it.
Comey told MSNBC the charges were "crazy." Prosecutors told a grand jury they were criminal. Twelve jurors will eventually decide which description fits, and whether a former FBI director who spent years investigating a president can convince a courtroom that "86 47" was just a day at the beach.
When you run the nation's premier law enforcement agency, you don't get to play word games about the president's life and then hide behind a claim of innocence. Accountability doesn't care about your résumé.