James Comey Indicted Over Alleged Trump Threat in Seashell Post
Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday over a photo of seashells officials said threatened President Donald Trump, charged with making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.
Objective Facts
Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday on charges of making a threat against President Donald Trump and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, based on an Instagram post from May 2025 showing seashells arranged to spell "86 47." The number 86 can often refer to getting rid of or tossing something out, while 47 corresponds to Trump's current term in office as the 47th president. Republicans claimed that it was a threat against President Donald Trump, while Comey said he "didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence." The Trump administration previously indicted Comey in September on charges alleging he lied to Congress and obstructed a congressional investigation, a case that was dismissed after a judge ruled that the prosecutor behind the original case, a former lawyer for Trump, had been unlawfully appointed. In his response to the indictment, Comey said "They're back," "This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won't be the end of it," and stated it was "very important to remember that 'this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be.'"
Left-Leaning Perspective
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the indictment was "another case of a weaponized Justice Department lashing out on behalf of a vengeful President." Democratic lawmakers were quick to criticize the DOJ for seeking another indictment against Comey, with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, writing on social platform X that the indictment was "ridiculous" and predicting that the DOJ "will lose in court, again." Lieu also noted the Merriam-Webster definition of "86" and said, "Comey's speech is protected by the First Amendment." Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also pushed back on the latest indictment in a post on X, writing "Trump's DOJ just criminally indicted James Comey for a beach photo of seashells and no other evidence cited." Eugene Volokh, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who specializes in First Amendment law, told CNN "This is not going anywhere. This is clearly not a punishable threat." Jimmy Gurulé, a University of Notre Dame Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, called the indictment "an embarrassment to the American criminal justice system," stating that "The damage to the credibility, integrity and reputation of the U.S. Department of Justice may be immeasurable" and that "Every DOJ lawyer that played a role in returning this frivolous indictment should be ashamed." Neama Rahmani, another former federal prosecutor, said Comey has a "very significant" First Amendment defense and that the case is "dubious at best," predicting the case would likely be dismissed at the pretrial stage and describing it as "political theater." Left-leaning coverage emphasizes the lack of hard evidence in the indictment and the pattern of political targeting by the Trump administration. The Justice Department's three-page indictment doesn't go into much detail, and "Occam's razor would seem to point to this being a thinly constructed case," with Trump having previously made clear he wants Comey indicted and, when the first indictment against the former FBI director didn't pan out, the president and other administration officials quickly declared the seashell post was a threat before any investigation was actually conducted. The left also notes the double standard in prosecution of similar language used by Trump allies.
Right-Leaning Perspective
House Republican Dan Meuser defended the indictment by invoking the concept of "dangerous speak," telling NewsNation's Blake Burman: "when the former FBI director writes in the sand, 86-47, which means, kill the 47th president, that's concerning...There's something called dangerous speak. Dangerous speak means it's worse than hate speak...It means it invokes in others the desire to carry out violent acts. And what James Comey put out, yeah, that could certainly be interpreted to mean to carry out violent acts." Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued that Comey's post crossed the line between First Amendment-protected speech and speech that warrants prosecution, stating "It's not a very difficult line to look at, and it's not, in my mind, a difficult line for one to cross over, one way or the other," and asserting "We cannot, you are not allowed to threaten the President of the United States of America. That's not my decision. That's Congress's decision, and a statute that they passed that we charge multiple times a year." When asked if Trump felt Comey's post had endangered him, Trump said on Wednesday, "Based on what I'm seeing out there, yeah. People like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others." Trump defended his interpretation by telling reporters "If anybody knows anything about, crime, they know 86 ... it's a mob term for kill him, you know" and "'86 him,' the mobster says to one of his wonderful associates. '86 him' -- that means kill him." Some Republican members of Congress have defended the indictment. Right-leaning coverage accepts the administration's argument that the specific arrangement of "86 47" in context constitutes a threat. The right emphasizes Trump's claim that "86" is established mob terminology for killing, and argues Comey, as a former FBI director, would have known this. The right frames this as a straightforward prosecution of threatening speech against the president, not as selective prosecution or retaliation.
Deep Dive
This case represents a collision between First Amendment protections and presidential security law. The specific angle centers on whether the Trump administration can prosecute a political opponent for an ambiguous social media post. The underlying legal issue involves the Supreme Court's 2023 decision requiring prosecutors to prove a defendant understood their message could be perceived as threatening and acted with conscious disregard for that risk. Comey's immediate deletion and denial of intent pose a significant evidentiary problem for prosecutors seeking to prove the required mens rea. The prosecution's weakness is evident in its sparse indictment and the near-universal skepticism from former prosecutors and First Amendment scholars, including some Trump allies. The real divide is not primarily legal but political: commentators skeptical of the case emphasize the lack of evidence and the precedent such prosecutions would set (particularly given Trump's own history of violent rhetoric), while supporters accept the administration's characterization of the phrase as clearly threatening within political context. A critical fact both sides acknowledge but interpret differently is that other prominent figures—including Trump allies Jack Posobiec and Matt Gaetz—have used identical or similar "86" nomenclature without prosecution. The case's implications extend far beyond Comey. With the phrase "86 47" increasingly adopted by protesters of the Trump administration, the case could carry sweeping implications for the First Amendment. If conviction succeeds despite the ambiguity and Comey's disavowal, prosecutors could apply similar logic to thousands of anti-Trump messages. If it fails, it may embolden further challenges to the administration's litigation strategy. The timing—coming days after an actual attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents' Dinner—adds political pressure on courts to either take threats seriously or protect speech broadly, depending on viewpoint.