The Justice Department hit former FBI Director James Comey with a second federal indictment, this time charging him with threatening the life of President Donald Trump over a now-deleted Instagram photo that showed seashells arranged to read "86 47" on a beach. The two-count indictment accuses Comey of "knowingly and willfully making a threat to take the life of, or inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States," Fox News reported.
The new charges land roughly five months after a federal judge dismissed an earlier case against Comey, one that charged him with lying to Congress about press leaks, on the grounds that the prosecutor involved had been improperly appointed. That September 2025 case never reached the merits. Now the Justice Department is back with a different theory, built on a different set of facts, but aimed at the same man.
The indictment also carries a forfeiture notice. If convicted, Comey would be required to surrender any property or proceeds derived from the alleged unlawful conduct. One court document tied to the case was described as a "Warrant issued," though it remains unclear whether Comey was arrested or allowed to self-surrender.
In May 2025, Comey uploaded an Instagram photo showing shells on a beach arranged in the formation "86 47." Trump is the 47th president of the United States. In slang, "86" can mean to eliminate or get rid of something, or someone. Republicans and Trump administration officials viewed the post as a veiled threat against the president's life.
Comey took the post down the same day. He later wrote that he had assumed the shells reflected a political message, not a call to violence:
"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."
President Trump rejected that explanation outright. In an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier, Trump said:
"He knew exactly what that meant. 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."
The indictment describes the post as a "serious expression of an intent to do harm." Prosecutors charged Comey not only with threatening the president but also with transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce, a second count that reflects the digital reach of the Instagram post, the Associated Press reported.
Comey's troubles with the law did not begin with a beach photo. Trump fired him in 2017 during his first term over the handling of the Russia investigation. Since then, Comey has been a vocal critic of the president, a posture that placed him squarely in the crosshairs of a Justice Department now led by officials who view the prior administration's conduct toward Trump as itself a form of weaponization.
The DOJ's broader push to hold former intelligence and law-enforcement officials accountable extends well beyond Comey. Grand jury subpoenas have hit cooperating witnesses in a separate criminal probe of former CIA Director John Brennan, another prominent Trump critic from the intelligence community.
On April 14, the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group published a report accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing federal law, a charge that frames the current Justice Department's posture as corrective rather than retaliatory. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has dismissed the notion that the department has improperly targeted Trump opponents.
Blanche said earlier this month that Trump has a "right" and a "duty" to influence federal investigations, including those involving political enemies who probed him in the past:
"We have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now. It is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with and believes should be investigated."
That framing has drawn scrutiny from critics who see the Comey prosecution as politically motivated. But the Justice Department's position is straightforward: the law applies to everyone, including former FBI directors who post ambiguous messages about the sitting president.
Not everyone on the right is cheering. Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and National Review commentator, sharply criticized the new indictment, calling it worse than the first:
"If it's possible, the Trump Justice Department's new indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is even more absurd than the previous indictment. That one failed to state a crime. This one fabricates a crime."
McCarthy's critique matters because it comes from a credible conservative legal voice, not from Comey's defenders on the left. If the government's theory is that a former FBI director committed a federal crime by posting a photo of shells on a beach, shells he claims he stumbled upon during a walk, the evidentiary burden will be steep. Proving that Comey's post constituted a "serious expression of an intent to do harm," rather than a political taunt or a clumsy coincidence, requires more than outrage.
The Justice Department has already seen one Comey case collapse on procedural grounds. A second failure would be far more damaging, not to Comey, but to the credibility of the department's broader accountability efforts. The reshuffling of the DOJ's Russia-investigation inquiry and related probes demands results that hold up in court, not indictments that generate headlines and then evaporate before a judge.
The timing of the second indictment is notable. It arrived just hours after a federal judge in New York allowed a separate lawsuit brought by Maurene Comey, James Comey's daughter and a former federal prosecutor, to move forward. She is suing the Justice Department over what she describes as an unlawful dismissal, alleging she was terminated "solely or substantially because her father is former FBI Director James B. Comey, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both."
Whether the timing was coincidental or deliberate, the optics are awkward. An indictment dropping hours after a judge greenlights a related family member's wrongful-termination lawsuit invites the very criticism the Justice Department says is unfounded.
The broader context of alleged politicization of prosecutions, from the Biden era through the current administration, makes clean, defensible legal work more important than ever. If the DOJ wants to prove it operates on principle rather than grudge, the cases it brings need to survive contact with a courtroom.
Key details about the new indictment remain unclear. Fox News reported that the specific court and venue have not been publicly identified. The case number and docket are not yet available. Whether Comey surrendered voluntarily or was taken into custody is unknown. The forfeiture notice references property or proceeds tied to the alleged conduct, but what assets the government has in mind has not been disclosed.
Breitbart noted that the new indictment comes amid broader accusations that Trump's Justice Department has targeted perceived political enemies, a charge the administration rejects but one that gains traction every time a high-profile case falters.
The recent personnel conflicts within the Justice Department only add to the sense that every prosecution touching Trump's orbit will face intense public scrutiny, from both sides.
James Comey is not a sympathetic figure to most conservatives. He presided over an FBI that surveilled a presidential campaign, leaked to the press, and set the stage for years of political turmoil. If the Justice Department has solid evidence that his Instagram post was a genuine threat against the president, then prosecution is warranted regardless of who the defendant is.
But "86 47" scrawled in seashells is a thin reed on which to hang a federal indictment. The government's first case against Comey collapsed. The second will face even sharper scrutiny. Conservatives who spent years demanding accountability from the FBI and DOJ should want that accountability to be built on rock, not sand, and certainly not on shells.
