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Former FBI director James Comey was indicted April 28, 2026, over accusations that he threatened to harm President Donald Trump. The case stems from a May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey shared a photo of seashells arranged to read “86 47” that he said he found on a North Carolina beach. Prosecutors say the photo should be considered a threat. Comey has denied the allegations. Here’s ongoing coverage from The News & Observer.
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Federal prosecutors say the Trump administration did not influence their decision to charge James Comey with threatening the president, pushing back against the former FBI director’s effort to have the case thrown out on the grounds of biased prosecution.
In an affidavit, Ellis Boyle, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said neither President Donald Trump nor anyone in his administration pressured him to continue the investigation or seek a grand jury indictment.
“In making the determination, I did not feel pressured, coerced, or motivated in any way from any individual,” Boyle’s affidavit states.
The filings ask U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan to reject Comey’s motions to dismiss the case. Comey’s motions argue the indictments resulted from selective and vindictive prosecution at Trump’s behest and that Comey’s May 2025 Instagram post depicting seashells arranged to read “86 47” was protected speech rather than a true threat.
Whether Comey intended the message as a threat, prosecutors argue in responses filed Wednesday night, should be decided by a jury.
“Courts across the country have recognized that whether a statement constitutes a true threat is fact-bound, context-specific, and quintessentially a matter for the jury,” states one of the motions that are signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo.
Key context includes that some people do associate “86 47” with violence, repeated assassination attempts of Trump, and one of Comey’s novels, which was set to be released five days after the seashell post from a North Carolina beach, the prosecutors’ filings state.
The protagonist in Comey’s novel “FDR Drive” is a prosecutor investigating a far-right podcaster who made vague suggestions that his adversaries should be harmed and whose fans responded by killing or injuring some of them, the government’s filing states.
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“In the midst of an unprecedented threat environment against the President, just days before releasing a book about a charismatic public figure who publicly conveys messages instructing his followers to ‘get rid of’ his political enemies, leading to the actual killing of those enemies (in part to generate interest and money from those same followers), Comey posted a message that many observers, including federal and local law enforcement officers, reasonably interpreted to mean ‘kill President Trump,’“ the filings states.
On May 15, 2025, Comey was walking on a North Carolina beach when he says he found seashells arranged in the white sand to say “86 47.”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines 86 as slang for getting rid of something, cutting off service to someone, or taking an item off a menu. Forty-seven refers to Trump serving as the 47th president.
Some criticized the post, including Trump, saying it called for harming the president.
Comey deleted the post later that day, saying he didn’t realize some people associated the phrase 86 with violence.
In April, a North Carolina federal grand jury charged Comey with two federal felonies. The charges of threatening the president and broadcasting the threat over state lines carry prison sentences of up to five years each.
The April 28 indictment claims that a “reasonable person” with information about the case would interpret the seashell post as “a serious expression of an intent to harm the president.”
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This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
This story was originally published August 19, 2026 at 9:27 AM.