Politics
Comey Indicted Again, This Time Over an Instagram Post the DOJ Calls a Threat on Trump's Life
The former FBI director faces a new charge for a 2025 seashell photo that prosecutors say implied violence against the president, reigniting debates about free speech and political prosecutions.
The U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment on April 28, 2026 charging former FBI Director James Comey with making a threat against President Trump NBC News. A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned the charge NBC News.
The alleged threat is a photo Comey posted to Instagram on May 15, 2025 showing seashells arranged on a beach in the pattern “86 47,” with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk” CNN. Government prosecutors say “86 47” constitutes a true threat: “86” is restaurant slang for getting rid of or killing, and “47” refers to President Trump as the 47th president NPR. The indictment alleges that a reasonable recipient familiar with those code numbers would interpret the post as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm” NPR.
The legal question is whether the post meets the “true threat” doctrine, which the Supreme Court tightened in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). The Court ruled that the government must prove the speaker acted with subjective recklessness: that they consciously disregarded a substantial risk their words would be interpreted as a threat Oyez. Comey deleted the post the same day he posted it, writing that he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and that “I oppose violence of any kind” NPR.
The case is the second federal indictment of Comey. The first was in 2025 for allegedly lying to Congress, brought in the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed that case in November 2025 after finding that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed NPR. Comey’s legal team has called the new charge “a weaponization of the Justice Department” CNN.
The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, a George W. Bush appointee, in the Eastern District of North Carolina Carolina Journal. The resolution will test whether the Counterman recklessness standard protects ambiguous coded phrases when the government claims the speaker’s history supplies the missing intent. A ruling against Comey would narrow First Amendment protections for coded political rhetoric. A dismissal would reinforce that even unpopular or provocative speech requires clear intent to threaten before the government can prosecute.
References
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgz4rvlem5o — bbc.com (accessed 2026-04-29)
- https://apnews.com/article/james-comey-indicted-threat-trump-instagram — apnews.com (accessed 2026-04-29)
Editor's notes — what this article still gets wrong
Where it lands
The Counterman v. Colorado framework is the right legal anchor, and the article earns credit for explaining "subjective recklessness" in plain terms rather than just name-dropping the case. Most political coverage skips that step.
Where it falls short
The "86 means kill" premise is stated as settled fact when it is the prosecution's contested interpretation -- restaurant slang for "86" primarily means "out of stock" or "cut from service," and the lethal reading is disputed. The article should have flagged this as the government's theory, not a gloss. The first indictment is also summarized loosely: the Halligan appointment issue is described as her being "unlawfully appointed" with no explanation of why, which is the legally interesting part.
What it didn't answer
The article never addresses why North Carolina. Comey's beach walk explains the photo's location, but venue choice in a case this politically charged is not incidental -- and the piece doesn't ask whether the deletion of the post the same day strengthens or undermines the government's recklessness argument, since prosecutors could read it as consciousness of guilt rather than innocent clarification.