James Comey, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director, a longtime adversary of U.S. President Donald Trump, has once again been brought to criminal trial for allegedly posting on social media a photo hinting at an assassination of President Trump.
According to combined reports from major outlets including AP, Fox News, and CNN on the 28th (local time), the U.S. Department of Justice indicted former Director Comey on charges including threatening to kill the president and transmitting a threat. The post in question is a photo of seashells that former Director Comey uploaded to Instagram in May last year. The Department of Justice considered the photo—seashells arranged on a sandy beach in the shape of the numbers 86 47—to be a serious incitement to violence targeting Trump, the 47th president.
In the United States, the slang "86" means "to get rid of something," "to kick someone out," or "to kill." According to linguists, the term originally circulated among restaurant and bar staff in the 1920s and 1930s as industry jargon meaning "the item is sold out." As the meaning broadened, it also came to be known as removing a political rival.
Immediately after the controversy, former Director Comey moved to contain the fallout by deleting the post. He explained, "I posted the photo because I thought the seashells I saw on a beach walk carried a political message," adding, "I didn't know people associate those numbers with violence, and I oppose violence in any form." But President Trump said in a Fox News interview, "He knew exactly what it meant," adding, "If you are the FBI Director and you don't know what it means, it means 'assassination,' and it says it loudly and clearly." Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard also told Fox News, "He should be put behind bars."
The indictment came three days after a shooting at a dinner hosted by President Trump on the 25th. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a briefing that day, "The Department of Justice has prosecuted dozens of cases involving threats against the president, and we take them very seriously." A conviction on a charge of threatening the president carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
But the opposition bloc argued it was "retaliatory prosecution leveraging a past grudge." Former Director Comey is the figure who, while investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, was abruptly fired by the president in 2017.
The Department of Justice also indicted him last September on perjury charges related to the Russia scandal, but the case was dismissed due to the illegal appointment of the supervising prosecutor. Recently, former federal prosecutor Maureen Comey, daughter of former Director Comey, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice over what she says was wrongful termination. In a video posted on Substack, former Director Comey countered, "I remain innocent and I am not afraid," adding, "I believe in an independent federal judiciary."