Former FBI Director James Comey, 65, turned himself in Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, after a North Carolina grand jury indicted him on two counts alleging he threatened to kill President Trump through a social media post last year.

The indictment, returned Tuesday in the Eastern District of North Carolina, charges Comey with "knowingly and willfully making a threat to take the life of and to inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States" and "knowingly and willfully transmitting an interstate commerce communication that contained a threat to kill the president of the United States." An arrest warrant was also issued.

The charges stem from an Instagram post Comey published on May 15, 2025, showing an image of seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers "86 47." He later deleted it. The number 47 refers to Trump, the 47th president. Prosecutors argue that "86" is slang for killing someone, a reading Trump himself endorsed Wednesday afternoon from the Oval Office, as the New York Post reported.

Trump told reporters the term carries a specific meaning.

"It's a mob term for 'kill him.' They say, '86 the son of a gun.'"

He called Comey a "very dirty cop" and added: "People like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others."

Comey maintains innocence, invokes First Amendment

Comey surrendered at the courthouse near his Virginia home ahead of an initial court appearance. His lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, issued a statement denying the charges and signaling a constitutional defense.

"Mr. Comey vigorously denies the charges contained in the Indictment filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina. We will contest these charges in the courtroom and look forward to vindicating Mr. Comey and the First Amendment."

Comey himself struck a defiant tone Tuesday after the indictment came down.

"I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go."

Last year, Comey told MSNBC he never created the shell arrangement and only shared the photo because he found it visually interesting. "I said, 'That's really clever,'" Comey said at the time. "I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it, until I heard through here that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy."

That explanation did not satisfy investigators, who spent the better part of a year building the case. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told CBS Mornings that the investigation had been underway for nearly twelve months before the grand jury acted. The Washington Examiner reported that Blanche said Trump was "absolutely, positively, not" involved in directing the prosecution.

"This is something that has been investigated for nearly a year now, and the result of that investigation is a grand jury returned an indictment."

Blanche, who replaced Pam Bondi as acting attorney general earlier this year, framed the case as a straightforward criminal matter, not a free speech dispute.

DOJ rejects free speech defense before trial begins

Newsmax reported that Blanche drew a hard line on the First Amendment question Fitzgerald raised.

"You are not allowed to threaten the president of the United States of America."

He added: "This case was indicted today... There has been a tremendous amount of investigation." Prosecutors argue the post was a serious threat because of the combined meaning of "86" and "47", one a well-known slang term, the other an unmistakable reference to the sitting president.

Comey faces a maximum penalty of ten years if convicted. But proving the case may not be simple. Former FBI special agent Nicole Parker told Fox News that threat cases hinging on interpretation rather than explicit language are inherently difficult.

"These cases may be difficult to charge. I have charged them before in the past, and it is certainly possible to come up with guilty verdicts. No one is above the law, and guilty verdicts do come down the pipeline."

The question for a jury will be intent. Did Comey share a beach photo because he thought it was clever? Or did a former director of the FBI, a man trained in the precise meaning of words and actions, know exactly what "86 47" would communicate?

A second indictment after the first case collapsed

This is not Comey's first trip through the federal system as a defendant. A grand jury previously indicted him in September on one charge of making false statements and one charge of obstruction, alleging he lied to Congress. A federal judge dismissed that case in November after finding that acting Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed.

The government's decision to bring new charges on a different theory, this time in North Carolina rather than Virginia, signals a Justice Department determined to hold Comey accountable regardless of the procedural setback.

Comey's legal troubles sit within a broader pattern of accountability efforts aimed at officials from the Russia-investigation era. He was subpoenaed in a DOJ probe into the origins of the Russia collusion narrative, and the department has also pursued other figures tied to that chapter, including a probe into former CIA Director John Brennan.

From prosecutor to defendant

The arc of Comey's career makes the current scene difficult to ignore. He built his reputation as a hard-charging federal prosecutor in New York. As Manhattan U.S. attorney, he indicted Martha Stewart for insider trading in 2003. He later ran day-to-day operations at the Justice Department as deputy attorney general under George W. Bush before President Obama appointed him FBI director.

Trump fired him in May 2017 amid growing frustration with the bureau's investigation into his 2016 campaign's alleged collusion with Russia. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation ultimately found no evidence of a conspiracy involving Trump. But Comey emerged from the episode as one of the president's most persistent public critics, a role that carried him onto cable news panels and bestseller lists.

That history of institutional conflict between Trump and the FBI has only deepened. The bureau fired agents who investigated Trump's classified documents case, and the broader reckoning over surveillance abuses during the Russia probe continues, with Carter Page's FISA abuse lawsuit now before the Supreme Court.

Now the man who once held the power to indict stands on the other side of the courtroom. He faces a government he once led, armed with the same tools he once wielded.

What comes next

The case will turn on whether prosecutors can convince a jury that a deleted Instagram photo of seashells crossed the line from political commentary into criminal threat. Comey's defense will lean on the First Amendment and the ambiguity of the image. The government will argue that a former FBI director knew precisely what he was posting, and that the Secret Service and federal investigators took it seriously enough to spend a year building a case.

Several questions remain open. No case number or docket number has been publicly identified. The exact timing of Comey's court appearance Wednesday was not disclosed. And prosecutors have not publicly detailed what additional evidence, beyond the post itself, the grand jury considered.

What is clear is that the Justice Department is not backing down. The first indictment fell on a technicality. The second came from a different district, on different charges, with a different legal theory. The message from federal prosecutors is plain: procedural dismissals do not equal exoneration.

For years, Comey positioned himself as the conscience of law enforcement, the man who stood above politics. Now a grand jury says he threatened the president. The courtroom will decide whether that's true. But the irony writes itself: the man who spent a career putting others under oath will finally have to answer questions under it himself.