The Daily Fuckup

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted former FBI Director James Comey on April 28, 2026, over a May 15, 2025 Instagram post that showed seashells arranged to read “86 47.” The indictment says Comey “knowingly and willfully” made a threat against President Donald Trump and alleges a second count for transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. The case charges 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-indicts-former-fbi-director-james-comey-threats-harm-president-trump?utm_source=openai))

The government’s theory is straightforward on paper: it says the post was not just a political jab but a threat the law can punish. The indictment alleges that a reasonable person familiar with the context would understand the message as a serious expression of intent to harm the president. What the defense does with that claim will matter more than the social-media pile-on around it. On the public record now, the fight is about whether an ambiguous image can be proved to cross the line into a criminal threat. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-indicts-former-fbi-director-james-comey-threats-harm-president-trump?utm_source=openai))

This case also comes with a built-in history problem for anyone trying to describe it cleanly. The Justice Department posted separate statements on Sept. 25, 2025 about a different Comey indictment involving false-statement and obstruction allegations. That earlier case is not the one at issue here, and mixing the two would scramble the chronology and the charges. The April 28, 2026 indictment stands on its own, and it is narrower: one Instagram post, two threat counts, and a question of whether the words and image amount to a prosecutable threat. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-bondi-director-patel-statements-regarding-indictment-former-fbi-director?utm_source=openai))

The broader politics are unavoidable, but they are not the legal elements. The indictment is now the thing that matters: what it says, what it does not say, and whether prosecutors can prove beyond the image’s obvious ambiguity that it was a true threat under federal law. Whatever else the post was, the case now turns on whether a jury sees it as a coded slogan or a criminal one. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-indicts-former-fbi-director-james-comey-threats-harm-president-trump?utm_source=openai))