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Federal grand jury indicts ex-FBI Director James Comey a second time over '86 47' post

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted former FBI Director James Comey on April 28, 2026, on two counts arising from a May 2025 Instagram post of seashells arranged to read "86 47," which the Justice Department casts as a death threat against President Trump. The charges follow the 2025 collapse of an earlier DOJ case against Comey and the dismissal weeks earlier of Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom Trump faulted for not pursuing his agenda aggressively enough.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Eastern District of North Carolina; Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned an indictment on April 28, 2026, charging former FBI Director James Comey with two counts of threatening President Donald J. Trump. The charges rest on a May 15, 2025 Instagram post in which Comey shared a photo of seashells arranged to read "86 47" — captioned "Cool shell formation on my beach walk" — that the Justice Department contends a reasonable viewer would read as a call to harm the 47th president. Comey is charged under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) (threatening the president) and 18 U.S.C. § 875(c) (transmitting a threat in interstate commerce), and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced the case alongside U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle.

The re-indictment came after an earlier DOJ prosecution of Comey was dismissed in 2025, when a court found the prosecutor who secured that indictment had been unlawfully appointed, and less than a month after Trump dismissed Attorney General Pam Bondi for what he described as insufficient aggressiveness in pursuing his agenda. Comey, who removed the post in 2025 after some readers interpreted it as a threat, has said he understood the numbers as political expression rather than a call to violence, and his lawyers have signaled they will challenge the charges as vindictive.

The case sharpens long-running concerns that federal prosecutorial power is being directed at the president's perceived adversaries. Charging a former FBI director over a social-media image — after a prior case against him collapsed and after the removal of an attorney general seen as insufficiently aggressive — implicates core First Amendment protections for political speech and the bar against selective and vindictive prosecution. An indictment is an accusation, not a conviction, and Comey is presumed innocent.

Updates

2026-08-18 — DOJ filing disputes Comey's account, seeks to distance Blanche [5, 6]

In a court filing opposing Comey's motions to dismiss, prosecutors argued there is "no serious dispute" that an objective viewer could read the seashell post to mean "Kill President Trump," and challenged Comey's account that the arrangement was incidental, noting it was found several miles from public beach access near the private property where Comey was staying. The filing also sought to distance newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche from the charging decision, stating U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle acted without direction from Trump or Blanche and did not inform Blanche of the charging decision until the day before it was presented to the grand jury.

Why we recorded this

Two bedrock protections are at stake here: the First Amendment's shield for political expression, and the principle that prosecutors charge people on the law and the evidence, not on a person's politics. When the Justice Department indicts a former FBI director over a social-media image, after an earlier case against him collapsed and just weeks after the President removed an attorney general he faulted as insufficiently aggressive, it raises the core danger of prosecutorial power aimed at the president's perceived adversaries. We record this because selective and speech-based prosecution, however any case ends, turns the criminal law into a tool against critics. An indictment is an accusation, and the person charged is presumed innocent.

Sources

  1. Federal Grand Jury Indicts Former FBI Director James Comey for Threats to Harm President Trump — U.S. Department of Justice primary accessed June 6, 2026
  2. James Comey indicted over 2025 social media post allegedly threatening Trump — The Washington Post primary accessed June 6, 2026
  3. Former FBI Director James Comey indicted over alleged 'threat' against Trump — CNN secondary accessed June 6, 2026
  4. Grand jury indicts former FBI director James Comey for a second time — NPR secondary accessed June 6, 2026
  5. 'No serious dispute' that Comey's seashell post could be read as a Trump threat, prosecutors say — PBS NewsHour (Associated Press) investigative accessed August 19, 2026
  6. Justice Department attempts to distance Attorney General Todd Blanche from Comey's '8647' seashell threat indictment — CNN investigative accessed August 19, 2026

See also