James Comey charged over deleted Instagram post about Trump threat

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted James Comey on April 28 over a deleted Instagram post that showed seashells arranged to read “86 47,” a phrase prosecutors say was aimed at Donald J. Trump, the 47th president. The two-count indictment charges the former FBI director under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), and says a reasonable recipient familiar with the circumstances would interpret the post as a serious expression of intent to do harm.

The case lands at the fault line between political speech, coded language and criminal threat law. Prosecutors will have to show not only that the image referenced Trump, but that it crossed the constitutional line into a true threat, the category of speech the Supreme Court has said is not protected. That standard is what will make or break the case: ambiguous symbolism, even when loaded with politics, is not enough unless the government can persuade a court that the post would be understood as a genuine threat rather than a tasteless or cryptic message.

Comey, 65, said the shells were found on a North Carolina beach and that he removed the post after realizing some people interpreted it as violent. Trump escalated the controversy publicly, saying on Truth Social that “86” is a mob term for “kill him” and describing Comey’s post as a call to kill him. The political stakes are unusually high because the dispute sits inside years of conflict between the two men, stretching back to the 2016 election and Trump’s firing of Comey as FBI director in 2017.

The indictment is Comey’s second federal criminal case in less than a year. On Sept. 25, 2025, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia charged him with false statement and obstruction tied to his Sept. 30, 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. That case followed a separate 2019 Justice Department inspector general report that said Comey violated FBI policies and his employment agreement in how he retained and shared memoranda about interactions with Trump, although prosecutors did not pursue charges then.

The new indictment also carries a forfeiture notice and is being handled by U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel both backed the case in statements, a detail that will only sharpen arguments that the prosecution is as politically combustible as it is legally serious. For prosecutors, the burden is to prove a threat, not just a provocation. For Comey, the defense will likely argue that the post was symbolic, ambiguous and protected speech, not a criminal plan.