Comey indicted a second time, for a photograph of seashells

Editor's note: the president's own statements called the post an assassination call and demanded Comey's prosecution before the indictment adopted that theory.

The charge rests on a photograph of seashells. The indictment, filed in open court on April 28, 2026, charges Comey under sections 871(a) and 875(c) on the basis of an Instagram photograph showing seashells arranged to make out 86 47, alleging that a reasonable recipient familiar with the circumstances would read it as a serious expression of intent to harm the president. The Justice Department announced it the same day, with the acting Attorney General saying that threatening the life of the president is a grave violation of the nation's laws. This was the second attempt: the first indictment, from September 2025, had been dismissed after the prosecutor was found to have been unlawfully appointed, and the new case was before a different judge with trial set for October 2026.

The theory the indictment adopts is the president's own, stated a year earlier. In May 2025 he told Fox News that Comey knew exactly what the post meant, that a child would know, and that it meant assassination. In September 2025 he publicly pressed his Attorney General to prosecute Comey and two other critics, writing that he had been impeached twice and indicted five times over nothing and that justice must be served now. On July 28, 2026 Comey filed a 54-page motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution, arguing the case carries out a years-long campaign by the president to use the criminal process to punish him.

The government's case is that this was a true threat, and a grand jury agreed there was probable cause. That is the strongest answer to this record, and it is on the face of the indictment. No court has ruled on vindictiveness. What the record establishes is a prosecution whose factual basis is a single photograph, brought after the president had publicly supplied its interpretation and publicly demanded the prosecution, at a second attempt following a dismissal for unlawful appointment.