Comey indicted over deleted 86 47 post, DOJ alleges Trump threat

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted James Comey on Tuesday on two felony counts, accusing the 65-year-old former FBI director of threatening President Donald Trump through a deleted Instagram post that showed seashells arranged to read “86 47.” Prosecutors charged Comey under 18 U.S.C. § 871, which covers threats to take the life of or inflict bodily harm on the president, and 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which prohibits transmitting threats in interstate commerce.

The Justice Department said the case turns on intent and how a reasonable recipient would read the post in context. Comey posted the image on May 15, 2025, with the caption “Cool shell information on my beach walk,” then deleted it after backlash. Merriam-Webster defines “86” as slang for refusing service, ejecting, removing or getting rid of someone or something, a meaning that has long coexisted with more aggressive political interpretations. Comey later said he had assumed it was a political message, did not realize some people associate the numbers with violence, and opposed violence of any kind.

The post drew an immediate law-enforcement response. Kristi Noem said the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service were investigating, and Kash Patel said the FBI would support that work. Donald Trump Jr. accused Comey of “casual[ly] calling for my dad to be murdered,” while Trump later said Comey knew “exactly” what the post meant and called it an assassination message. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the grand jury’s indictment followed what he described as violent incitement and deadly actions against Trump and other officials. FBI Director Kash Patel said Comey had “disgracefully encouraged a threat,” and U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said “no one is above the law.”

The new case lands after an earlier prosecution of Comey collapsed. In September 2025, a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted him on false-statement and obstruction charges tied to congressional testimony from the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation. Comey pleaded not guilty, but on November 24, 2025, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed that indictment after ruling that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed. The dismissal was without prejudice, leaving the door open for the case to be refiled by a properly appointed prosecutor.

Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 to 2017 before Trump fired him, has become one of the clearest symbols of the administration’s escalating fights over political speech, prosecutorial power and the boundaries of a threat. CBS News reported that the new indictment was signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca and assigned to U.S. District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, setting up another high-stakes test for how far federal law can reach into charged political expression.