A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted former FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday on two felony counts of threatening President Trump's life, charging that a May 2025 Instagram post of seashells arranged to spell "8647" amounted to a death threat against the 47th president. An arrest warrant has been issued, according to the case docket, and the matter has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan, a 2003 appointee of President George W. Bush.

It is the second time the Trump Justice Department has charged Comey since the president returned to office. Each count carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. The statute of limitations on the charges is five years, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, leaving the door open to similar cases tied to Trump's second term.

What the post showed

Comey posted the photograph on a North Carolina beach in May 2025. The shells were arranged to form the numerals 8647. "Eighty-six" is 1930s soda-counter slang for sold-out, according to Merriam-Webster, later broadened to mean getting rid of something. Trump is the 47th president.

Comey deleted the post within hours of Republican backlash, writing, "I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence," and adding, "I oppose violence of any kind."

The government's case

The indictment alleges Comey "did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States." Blanche, a former Trump criminal defense lawyer who took over the department in an acting capacity after the April 2 firing of Pam Bondi, defended the charges at a Tuesday press conference.

"Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice," Blanche said. "While this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate."

Asked how prosecutors would prove intent given Comey's apology and deletion, Blanche said, "You prove intent with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself to the extent ... it's appropriate."

The charges come three days after a gunman breached a checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and Trump was evacuated from the Washington Hilton. Administration allies have accused Democrats of inciting the attack.

The defense

Comey responded in a Substack video titled "Seashells." "I'm still innocent, I'm still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let's go," he said. His attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement that "Mr. Comey vigorously denies the charges" and that the defense will "contest these charges in the courtroom and look forward to vindicating Mr. Comey and the First Amendment."

Legal scholars flagged a steep evidentiary climb. The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that a true-threat conviction requires a defendant's subjective understanding that a statement could be read as threatening; otherwise the speech is protected. Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor and former federal prosecutor, called the indictment "an embarrassment to the American criminal justice system" in an email to CNBC.

A pattern of cases

The Justice Department previously indicted Comey last year in Virginia on charges of lying to Congress and obstruction. A federal judge dismissed that case in November after ruling that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed. Charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James were dropped on the same grounds. A mortgage-fraud inquiry into Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., did not produce charges.

Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the new indictment was "another case of a weaponized Justice Department lashing out on behalf of a vengeful President." White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair last year that Trump has engaged in "retribution" against perceived enemies since his return.

The counterpoint

Blanche rejected the framing that Comey is being singled out and said other threat investigations remain open, declining to discuss whether Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who displayed an "8645" item during Trump's first term, is among them. "Every case is different, the facts are different, who makes the threat matters, what the threat says matters," he said.