Ex-FBI Director Comey Indicted Over Seashell Post Seen as Trump Threat

James Comey was indicted on a two-count federal case over an Instagram post that showed seashells arranged to read “86 47,” a message prosecutors say a reasonable person would read as a serious expression of intent to harm Donald Trump. The case was filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where Comey has a beach house and where he posted the image, turning a shoreline photo into a test of how far coded political speech can go before it becomes a prosecutable threat.

The post appeared in May 2025 and carried the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” After backlash from Trump allies, Comey deleted it and said he had not realized some people associate the numbers with violence. He said he thought the image was a political message and added that he opposes violence of any kind. The Justice Department later moved forward with charges that include threats against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce through Instagram.

The government’s theory hinges on meaning and intent. Prosecutors say the shells would be understood by a reasonable person as a threat directed at the president. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the Justice Department that threats against the president are criminal and not protected speech. Comey’s lawyer said the defense would fight the case in court and vindicate the First Amendment.

The meaning of “86” has become central to that fight. Merriam-Webster says the term commonly means to throw out, get rid of, or refuse service, while noting a more recent sense meaning to kill, a usage the dictionary says has not fully entered because it remains relatively new and sparsely used. That ambiguity sits at the center of the indictment, which ABC News described as a short, three-page filing.

The case followed a May 2025 Secret Service interview with Comey after Trump administration officials accused him of advocating assassination. Tulsi Gabbard said he should be “behind bars,” and Trump said in a Fox News interview that he believed Comey knew exactly what the message meant. Comey denied any criminal intent and said he still believed in the independent judiciary, then responded to the indictment by saying, “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid,” and “this is not who we are as a country.”

It is the second criminal case brought against Comey under the Trump administration, after an earlier unrelated indictment was thrown out last year. The new one now asks whether a political post on a beach can be treated as protected expression, or whether prosecutors can prove it crossed the line into a threat.