{"id":637300,"date":"2026-04-29T00:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/637300\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T00:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:30:12","slug":"ex-fbi-chief-charged-over-seashell-photo-that-officials-say-threatened-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/637300\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-FBI chief charged over seashell photo that officials say threatened Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comey, who served as FBI chief from 2013 to 2017, when he was fired during President Trump’s first term, is accused of intentionally posting a photo on Instagram<\/a> of seashells depicting the numbers “86 47”.<\/p>\n

The now-deleted post from May last year, which was captioned “cool shell formation on my beach walk”, is alleged to be a threat against the life of President Trump.<\/p>\n

\"AtThe post in question, since deleted from Comey’s Instagram, shows seashells depicting “86 47”, but a grand jury has argued it has a sinister meaning. (AP)<\/p>\n

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.”<\/p>\n

It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”<\/p>\n

Comey insisted he meant no harm towards Trump, but the indictment against him alleges otherwise.<\/p>\n

“A reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret [the post] as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States,” a Department of Justice statement said.<\/p>\n

Comey has been charged with threatening the president, and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.<\/p>\n

If found guilty, he could face up to 10 years’ imprisonment.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"FILEComey was sacked as director of the FBI by Trump in 2017, and the pair have openly feuded since. (AP)<\/p>\n

“Threatening the life of the President of the United States is a grave violation of our nation’s laws,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The grand jury returned an indictment alleging James Comey did just that, at a time when this country has witnessed violent incitement followed by deadly actions against President Trump and other elected officials,” he added, referencing the shooting at a White House ball allegedly targeting President Trump last weekend.<\/p>\n

Kash Patel, current FBI director and a Trump ally, insisted Comey’s post was “disgraceful”.<\/p>\n

“As the former Director of the FBI, he knew full well the attention and consequences of making such a post,” Patel claimed.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/President Trump shaking hands with Comey in 2017, while the latter was still in his role as director of the FBI. (AP)<\/p>\n

Comey denied the claims when deleting the post last year, writing, “I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”<\/p>\n

The criminal case is the second in a matter of months against Comey and is part of the Trump administration Justice Department’s relentless effort to prosecute political opponents of the Republican president.<\/p>\n

The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed could expose the government to claims of a vindictive prosecution and to arguments that it is going out of its way to target the former FBI director.<\/p>\n

Comey had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.<\/p>\n

Reported with Associated Press.\ufeff<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comey, who served as FBI chief from 2013 to 2017, when he was fired during President Trump’s first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-637300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}