Former FBI Director James Comey is now facing a second indictment, with a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina charging him with making threats against the president and transmitting a threat. The case marks an escalation from earlier scrutiny into his post-FBI conduct, moving it firmly into criminal territory.
At the center of the situation is a social media post that, on its surface, looked trivial: an image of seashells arranged to form the numbers “86 47.” Comey described it as a “cool shell formation,” but the reaction online moved quickly in a different direction.
The number “86” is sometimes used as slang meaning “to get rid of” or “eliminate,” and paired with “47”—a reference many took to mean Donald Trump as the 47th president—it drew attention from both critics and investigators.
That interpretation now appears to be a key factor in the charges.
What remains unclear is how prosecutors are framing intent. Cases involving alleged threats often hinge less on the literal content and more on whether the message can reasonably be understood as a call to harm, and whether that interpretation was foreseeable. A vague or symbolic post can become legally significant if authorities believe it crosses that line.
The Justice Department has not released full details of the indictment, leaving gaps around what additional evidence, if any, supports the charges beyond the social media post. References to a broader probe suggest investigators may be examining a wider pattern of behavior, but those elements have not yet been made public.
Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 until his dismissal in 2017, has remained a visible and often controversial public figure. His statements—whether in interviews, books, or online—have consistently drawn attention, particularly when they touch on political figures or ongoing tensions tied to his time in government.
This indictment places those public communications under a different kind of scrutiny.
A second indictment, in particular, signals that prosecutors believe there is more than a single isolated issue at play. But without the full charging documents, the scope of that belief—and how it will hold up in court—remains an open question.
Read the full James Comey indictment by Carly Ortiz-Lytle
