WASHINGTON--The U.S. Justice Department brought criminal charges against James Comey on Tuesday for a second time, accusing the former FBI director of threatening President Donald Trump by posting a photo of seashells arranged to show the numbers "86 47".
The charges, brought in the federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina, accuse Comey of threatening the life of the U.S. president and transmitting a threat across state lines.
The case relates to an Instagram post Comey published last May while vacationing in North Carolina showing the arrangement of shells on a beach. In U.S. parlance, the number 86 can be used as a verb meaning to throw somebody out of a bar, while 47 could be seen as code for Trump, the 47th president.
The indictment marks a renewed push by Trump's Justice Department to target perceived political enemies of the president with criminal prosecution. Trump last year referred to Comey by name in a social media post calling for criminal charges against his adversaries.
"I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid," Comey said in a video posted online after the indictment, adding: "This is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be."
Comey deleted the May 2025 Instagram message after it attracted controversy."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," Comey said shortly after posting it.
Trump and his allies at the time said they interpreted Comey's post as a threat to violently remove Trump from power.Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has moved quickly to carry out Trump's demands for criminal cases after his predecessor, Pam Bondi, was ousted in part for not moving fast enough on them.
Blanche on Tuesday depicted the case as a routine prosecution for a threat against a public official, the type of case federal prosecutors frequently bring."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," Blanche said during a news conference.
