James Comey Indicted For ’86 47′ ‘Threat’ Against Trump

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey has been indicted by the Justice Department on charges related to an apparent threat, “86 47,” posted to social media in May 2025.

Comey is charged with “knowingly and willfully making a threat to take the life of, or inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States and knowingly and willfully transmitting a communication in interstate and foreign commerce that contained a threat to kill President Donald Trump,” the indictment states.

Comey’s post, which depicted seashells on a beach formed into the “86 47” message, has been broadly viewed as a not-so-subtle threat to President Donald Trump, and part of a larger left-wing campaign of assassination prep against Trump and other conservatives, meant to desensitize the American public to violence against the political right.

The number “86” is slang for to get rid of something, and Trump is the 47th president.

Comey faces two counts, one under Title 18, United States Code, Section 871(a), which makes it illegal to make public threats against the president, and another under Title 18, United States Code, Section 875(c), a statute against the transmission of the threat to interstate or foreign commerce.

Each individually carry the potential for fines, a maximum of five years imprisonment, or both.

The indictment comes just days after another would-be assassin attempted to kill the president and as many White House officials as possible, but was ultimately thwarted by unknown circumstances after a major Secret Service security failure resulted in shots being fired, but none actually hitting the assailant. The would-be assassin was ultimately arrested.

When Comey posted the picture of the seashells, he captioned it, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” Afterward, then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced he would be investigated for his call “for the assassination” of the president.

Comey also removed the post, stating, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down.”

Trump responded to Comey afterward, saying, “He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant.”

“If you’re the FBI director, and you don’t know what that meant, that meant ‘assassination,’ and it says it loud and clear,” Trump added.

The Tuesday indictment is from the Eastern District of North Carolina, and Comey claimed to have seen the shells on the beach in North Carolina when initially interviewed by the Secret Service.

The indictment is Comey’s second after he was indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia for obstruction and lying to Congress, related to his handling and perpetuation of the Russia collusion hoax.

A rogue federal judge dismissed that case, as well as another indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James, D-N.Y., regarding an alleged mortgage fraud scheme. In both cases, the Clinton-appointed Judge Cameron Currie claimed that Trump-appointed prosecutor Lindsay Halligan was unlawfully appointed.

Comey was fired in Trump’s first year in office during his first term for his mishandling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and his role as a key driver of the Russia collusion hoax.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.