James Comey beat his first indictment last November on a technicality.
Now the DOJ is back – and this time they found something Comey wrote himself.
What he put on paper destroys everything he has said in his defense.
Comey's NPR Interview on FDR Drive Proves He Knew the Line Between Speech and Incitement
A federal grand jury indicted Comey for posting a photo of seashells on a North Carolina beach arranged to spell "86 47" – 86 being slang for getting rid of someone, 47 being Trump's presidential number – and calling it a threat against the president's life.
Comey claimed he had no idea it could be interpreted as a threat.
But an interview he gave the same month confirmed he knew exactly what he was doing.
In May 2025, the same month Comey posted those seashells, he went on NPR to promote his thriller FDR Drive.
He described the plot as a story about a podcaster who tries "to motivate his followers to engage in acts of violence against the targets of his vitriol" – and who thinks he can escape accountability because "the line between speech and crime is fuzzy."
The NPR interviewer asked Comey directly about that line – the boundary between free speech and violent incitement.
Comey said he had "grappled with that very issue throughout my career."
Then he went to the beach, found seashells arranged as "86 47," posted the photo to his Instagram followers, and captioned it "Cool shell formation on my beach walk."
The man who spent a year writing about veiled incitement wants credit for not understanding veiled incitement.
The DOJ doesn't buy it.
The Second Comey Indictment and What the DOJ Charges Actually Say
On April 28, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the two-count indictment in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Count one: knowingly and willfully threatening to take the life of or inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States.
Count two: transmitting that threat in interstate commerce.
Combined maximum sentence: 10 years in federal prison.
"Threatening the life of the president of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice," Blanche said.
FBI Director Kash Patel stood next to Blanche when the charges dropped.
Patel said Comey "disgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump's life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see."
Patel added that Comey – as a former FBI director – "knew full well the attention and consequences of making such a post."
Comey posted a video response online.
"I'm still innocent, I'm still not afraid," he said. "And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go."
The first indictment – for allegedly lying to Congress about authorizing media leaks – was thrown out in November when a judge found the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed, and the DOJ returned with properly credentialed prosecutors to secure this one.
How the 86 47 Instagram Post Contradicts Everything Comey Claimed
Comey's entire defense rests on ignorance – that he saw some shells, thought it was a clever political message, and never connected "86" to violence.
That defense was hard enough to sell before prosecutors found his NPR interview.
After FDR Drive, it's not a defense at all.
There have been multiple assassination attempts on Trump during his second term, and a gunman disrupted the White House Correspondents' Dinner just days before Comey's indictment dropped.
The political climate Comey wrote about in FDR Drive – charged language leading to real-world violence – is not fiction anymore.
Comey wrote the blueprint for veiled incitement, posted the most recognizable example of veiled incitement he could have posted, then claimed he had no idea what he was doing.
A federal grand jury returned the indictment anyway.
Sources:
- "Grand jury indicts former FBI director James Comey for a second time," NPR, April 28, 2026.
- "James Comey indicted over seashell photo that officials say threatened Trump," NBC News, April 28, 2026.
- "Comey indicted again on charges stemming from Instagram post," CBS News, April 28, 2026.
- "Todd Blanche: Trump did not direct DOJ to prosecute Comey a second time," Washington Examiner, April 29, 2026.
- Leila Fadel, "James Comey is back with a new book, and a new controversy," NPR, May 23, 2025.
