A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned a two-count indictment on April 28 charging former FBI Director James Comey, 65, with threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce [1]. The charges stem from a May 15, 2025, Instagram post in which Comey published a photograph of seashells arranged on a North Carolina beach to read "86 47" [2]. The number 86 is old slang meaning "get rid of," and 47 is widely read as a reference to Trump, the 47th president. An arrest warrant was also issued following the indictment [3].
Count One, under 18 U.S.C. § 871, alleges that Comey knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the president, by publicly posting the seashell image on Instagram in a manner a reasonable recipient familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of intent to do harm. Count Two, under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), alleges that Comey consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communication would be viewed as threatening violence when he transmitted it in interstate commerce. If convicted on both counts, Comey faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The indictment is signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, and the case is assigned to Judge Louise Wood Flanagan.
This is the second time the Justice Department has sought to prosecute Comey. A grand jury indicted him in September on false-statement and obstruction charges related to Senate testimony he gave roughly five years ago; those charges were thrown out in November by a federal judge who found that Lindsey Halligan, the top prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia who secured that indictment, had been unlawfully appointed. That dismissal applied jointly to a parallel case against New York Attorney General Letitia James, with the court noting that Halligan was the sole prosecutor to sign both indictments, a departure from standard practice in federal cases. In that prior proceeding, Comey raised selective and vindictive prosecution arguments, though that motion was never decided on the merits.
Comey made a brief court appearance the day after the indictment at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, where he resides, but because the charged conduct occurred in North Carolina, he could not enter a plea in that courtroom. Defense attorney Patrick Fitzgerald stated that Comey "vigorously denies the charges" and pledged to contest them at trial [4]. Comey has maintained publicly that he did not realize some people associate the numbers with violence and took the post down once he saw it was being interpreted that way. At a press conference, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to specify what evidence the government possesses to satisfy the "knowingly and willfully" element of the threat statute, which is a core component of the charges.
The legal threshold is demanding. The Supreme Court has held that statements lose First Amendment protection only when they qualify as a "true threat," which requires prosecutors to show at minimum that the defendant recklessly disregarded the risk that the statement would be perceived as threatening violence, and a 2023 Supreme Court decision added that prosecutors must demonstrate the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements. Comey's defense attorneys could file motions to dismiss on First Amendment and selective prosecution grounds before the case ever reaches a jury. A substantive hearing in the Eastern District of North Carolina is expected to follow his initial appearance [5].
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