Ex-FBI chief charged with threatening the life of the president over Trump seashell post

Washington: Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted again, this time in an investigation over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Donald Trump.

The two-count indictment charges Comey with “knowingly and wilfully” making a threat to “take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon” Trump, and with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.

It offers no evidence to support the claim that Comey knowingly made a threat against the president, especially since he has said the opposite, but suggested a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret” the message as a threat to do harm.

“Well, they’re back – this time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago, and this won’t be the end of it,” Comey said in a video statement after the indictment. “But nothing has changed with me. I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let’s go.”

The seashells photo was posted nearly a year ago, but the indictment was secured as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche – a Trump loyalist who previously served as his personal lawyer – aims to prove to the president that he’s the right person to hold the job permanently.

In the the May 2025 post on Instagram, Comey shared a photo of seashells he saw on a walk in the arrangement of “86 47”. He has said he assumed that the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence.

Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Nonetheless, Comey was swiftly interviewed by the Secret Service after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by the AP, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out”, “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to”. It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill’. We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant”.

“A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “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 criminal case is the second in a matter of months against Comey and is part of the Trump administration Justice Department’s relentless effort to prosecute political opponents of the Republican president.

The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed could open the government to claims of a vindictive prosecution and to arguments that it is going out of its way to target Comey.

Comey had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether the Republican president’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election. He was fired by Trump months into the president’s first term, and they have openly feuded ever since.

The former FBI director was indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorised inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist. He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president – an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

Blanche was elevated earlier this month from deputy attorney general to acting attorney general, replacing Pam Bondi, who had frustrated Trump with the department’s struggles to build successful criminal cases against his adversaries.

Blanche since then has moved quickly to announce politically charged prosecutions, including a case last week against the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Centre, which is accused by the Justice Department of defrauding donors by paying donors to infiltrate hate groups. The group has denied any wrongdoing.

At a news conference announcing the indictment, Blanche refused to elaborate on any evidence of intent the government has but said: “How do you prove intent in any case? You prove intent with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself to the extent it’s appropriate. And that’s how we’ll prove intent in this case.”

And in an effort to rebut claims that Comey was being selectively prosecuted, Blanche contended that the case against the former FBI director was similar in kind to other threats cases the department routinely brings against the lesser known.

“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.

The case was filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the state where Comey found the seashells.

Comey’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on Tuesday, and a Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately comment.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission will start an early review of the TV station licenses owned by Walt Disney’s ABC network over potential “unlawful discrimination” the regulator said on Tuesday.

The unusual move comes just a day after Trump told ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he made last week about the US first lady having the glow of an “expectant widow”, escalating pressure from the US government on the media.

The review is tied to the commission’s inquiry last year into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices and whether they were discriminatory.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has reviewed evidence leading him to believe that the company has given employees different opportunities based on their race and gender, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked to not be identified because the discussions are private. In that context, Carr believes it’s appropriate to accelerate the license renewal process and evaluate whether ABC is operating the stations in the public interest, the person said.

AP, Bloomberg

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