April 29, 2026

Former FBI Director Indicted For Making A Threat Against The President (With Seashells)

Former FBI Director Indicted For Making A Threat Against The President (With Seashells)

A Federal grand jury has returned an indictment against Former FBI Director James Comey over an instagram photo showing a seashell formation on the beach. Last May, Comey posted a picture with shells forming the numbers “8647” which the DOJ says amounts to an expression to do harm to President Trump, the 47th President of the U.S. Comey says he is innocent and legal experts say the charges the DOJ is pursing are “unlikely to be successful” in court.

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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, folks, it is Wednesday, April twenty ninth, and a second man has been arrested this week, charged now with making threats against the president. But this is a much different guy from that guy who was at the White House correspondence dinner with that Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking now about the former FBI director Roles. He has been indicted and he is being charged with making threats against the President of the United States.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: What did he do?

00:00:32
Speaker 3: He posted a seashell picture on.

00:00:34
Speaker 2: Instagram That sounds very scary.

00:00:39
Speaker 3: This is this is fairly remarkable. Yes, Oka, former FBI director James Comy has now been indicted. A federal grand jury returned an indictment. Yes, over an Instagram photo that he posted of seashells back in May of twenty twenty five. He put under this picture, this was his caption, cool shell formation on my beach walk. Who would ever think that that photo could lead to federal chargers?

00:01:11
Speaker 1: What's the big deal? We say, federal charges. This is the second time they tried to indict this guy. They got them this time over the same picture. Now we're talking about seashells. I think maybe a lot of people are familiar with it by now, but not just any seashells robes. Obviously that alone can't be a threat against the president. But they were formed in a certain way and spelling out a certain phrase that some took as a threat.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: What was it?

00:01:35
Speaker 3: Yes, they were actually four numbers, eight six four seven.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: Give it a second, Give it a second, Give it a second. If folks aren't familiar, think about that.

00:01:43
Speaker 2: Folks.

00:01:44
Speaker 1: If you're seeing shells and it says eight six four seven, how do you interpret that as a threat against the president.

00:01:50
Speaker 3: This might help. Eighty six forty seven, Okay, Still eighty six a common phrase used for basically canceling, get rid of, or in some case, this is kill. So if you wanted to interpret it as eighty six meaning kill forty seven, you could interpret possibly as President Trump being the forty seventh president of the United States. So the allegation is that James Comey was inciting violence by telling people to kill President Trump by posting a picture of eighty six forty seven.

00:02:25
Speaker 1: Okay, why do they think this important? We got to take it from what the Justice Department is saying. Here ropes and they are taking this. Let's go with just taking this just on the merits, right, taking it on the merits. The Justice Department's argument is what, what are they saying and why are they saying? Because they are saying this was a knowing and willful act to incite violence, to call for violence against the president.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: That's right. So there were actually two charges, making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce because he did it on Instagram, and so basically there, this is what came out of the three page indictment. It states that the seashells were quote arranged in a pattern making out eighty six forty seven, which a reasonable recipient who was familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States end quote.

00:03:23
Speaker 1: Okay, that is their interpretation. Do they have a suggestion that maybe because of who it is it rose to a level or just any random person, any random citizen out there who would have done this would be facing the same charges. I haven't seen that suggestion. Maybe they say it does elevate but ropes, Yes, you took it on the merits.

00:03:43
Speaker 2: There and the other.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: Part of this, this is just the DOJ doing what the president wants them to do, which go after a guy he doesn't like.

00:03:50
Speaker 3: And interestingly, President Trump, this all came about. He made this post, by the way, in May of twenty twenty five, and once he saw some of the comments, he did delete that post, by the way, put up a second post and said it never occurred to him that his first post would be interpreted as being violent. And he actually he put this and said he didn't realize some folks associated those associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I opposed violence of any kind. So I took the post down. So pretty quickly after putting up that first post, he deleted it and put up that second post saying, whoa, I did not mean that. So it is pretty remarkable given that he put that up. President Trump directed Pam Bondy, get this guy, go after this guy. Well, now he fires Pam Bondy and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He was quick to act, uh.

00:04:42
Speaker 1: Yeah again, Like I was saying, Trump, we take it on its merits, and then you have to take the other part of this, which is the Department of Justice going after a guy that has criticized the President soundly in the past. This is the guy that the president fired. This is the guy that the president has criticized soundly, as Roden long extensive social media posts about he hates this guy. He has made clear he hates this guy, he hates this guy's family, he hates everything surrounding this guy.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: So this is.

00:05:12
Speaker 1: By many estimates, and it's not a stretch to think this is nothing more than what many suggest it is. Is it's just a political retaliation, and he's using the Justice Department to go after and possibly even try to put a guy in jail that has criticized him politically.

00:05:29
Speaker 3: That's a problem, Yes, it certainly is. And this would speak to a lot of what people are saying that this all feels very much like a He's acting like a dictator would, going after his political enemies, using the Justice Department for his own personal revenge, which clearly is not a separation of powers, which is what we would like to see the judicial branch, the executive branch, and the legislative branch all act independently. It doesn't seem like that is the case, or at least that is what some of the allegations, well, some of the allegations has been made against the Trump administration for not doing that, But that was the intent of the founding fathers. And by the way, it's not the first time Combe's been indicted. You pointed this out. This is the second time, because they tried to indict him on charges that he lied to Congress while testifying five years ago. That case was dismissed after a judge rule that the prosecutor behind the original case, who was a former lawyer for Trump, was unlawfully appointed, so that case was thrown out. This is the second attempt, and we are hearing from Comby. He put a video up vehemently denying any of these charges that he was actually trying to cause harm to the president. He said his actual quote was, this won't be the end of it. Nothing has changed with me. I am still innocent, I am still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go Now, an arrest isn't necessarily imminent in this case.

00:07:02
Speaker 2: Uh No, there's some technical He's probably.

00:07:04
Speaker 1: Going to be able to be allowed to turn himself in. But yeah, it made headlines that there was an arrest warrant issued for him.

00:07:11
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean he's a some fugitive for justice.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: But without question, the President would love to see this guy in handcuffs doing a traditional purp walk outside of a federal courthouse somewhere. But we don't think we're going.

00:07:23
Speaker 2: To see that.

00:07:23
Speaker 3: No, we don't think we're going to see that, and we don't at least legal experts who have weighed in don't think this case is going to get very far because there is a very high bar for the Department of Justice to prove that Komy did anything intentional.

00:07:38
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is an impossible case.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: So we don't have to talk of we're not experts legal experts, but we listen to them on these cases. There is nobody out there who agrees. No legal experts an objective one I should say that is saying this. They are dumbfounded that this case has made it to a federal court. It makes zero since eight, Okay, what's the argument. Oh, come on, he knew what he was talking about. He knew what that was going to mean. Okay, prove that I have rogue. I do not believe the FBI director is wanting and would put out a message saying that we need to kill or incite violence. Now, if he made a mistake and said, you know, given the times and just somebody crazy out there that could have misinterpreted this, Oops, my bad, I screwed up.

00:08:26
Speaker 2: I took it down and that should be the end of it.

00:08:28
Speaker 1: But you're telling me the former FBI directors call him for the president's assassination. And that's just not something I'm going to be on board with.

00:08:35
Speaker 3: Yes, And that would be, like you pointed out, almost impossible to prove in a court of law, because we know that eighty six can also mean cancel, get rid of, so like basically impeach, remove him from office. There's a lot of interpretations of what eighty six could mean. Was it childish and probably foolish of James Comy to put a picture of seashells saying eighty six forty seven? Yes? But was it criminal? I hardly think so.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: And that's that's what lawyers tell us. I don't need to go do reviews of cases. No, this is what they say. It's just from a lay persons. This doesn't make any sense that it's seashells. I also find it ridiculous that the FBI director's taking pictures of seashells as he's walking and instagramming them. Okay, fine, he's in a different place than life. All of it's kind of ridiculous, But even the fact that he's doing that, as to the ridiculousness of him now being indicted for a possible threat to the president's life over some seashells. Okay, man, you can. I just want to leave room for somebody making the argument we're in different times now and things like this shouldn't be done. And well, that's why he took it down, and that's why he said sorry.

00:09:43
Speaker 2: Did he not? Was it an apology?

00:09:45
Speaker 3: I don't know that he said sorry. He just basically said he didn't realize that anyone associated those numbers with violence.

00:09:52
Speaker 2: Would you say, acknowledged the mistake that he made and took it down.

00:09:54
Speaker 3: Yes, he said, it never occurred to me, but I opposed violence of any kind. So I took the post down, meaning I didn't mean to say what some people are saying I was saying, and he took the post down.

00:10:05
Speaker 1: So yes, And most short order cooks don't think about it either when they say eighty six fries, eighty six hash browns for the night, eighty six I don't think about it. And you say eighty six, it's not the common way it's used when we talk about killing somebody.

00:10:18
Speaker 3: It's canceling.

00:10:19
Speaker 1: It's not eighty six that they were eighty six eighty you throw something away. Fine, But Okay, he took it down. I am saying it's an acknowledgment that he did something wrong by taking it down. I'm saying he made even short of an apology. He acknowledged okay, my bad.

00:10:36
Speaker 3: And he took it down exactly. So if you think about that, and then you think about the tall order that the DOJ has to prosecute this case successfully, they literally have to prove that James Colemy, the former FBI director, knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of President Trump. That just doesn't seem even close to coming to that lovel So when we come back, this was not the only Komy who made the news yesterday. On Tuesday, Comy's daughter actually had a bit of news that was in favor of her lawsuit. And welcome back to this edition of Amy and DJ. We are talking about the former FBI director, James Comy. He has been indicted over his CShell Instagram photo where he took a picture of shells forming the numbers eighty six forty seven. The DOJ says that amounts to a threat to the President's life. James Comy says, yeah, it was not what I intended. I had no idea eighty six was somehow in some way inciting violence of any kind. He took the post down, put another post up explaining why he took his post down. But still he is now facing two charges of making one making a thread against the president and another for transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. But James Comy has a daughter named Marine. Remember Marine. She made headlines because oh, she was a prosecutor of a really big trial. We've been following, or we had been following over the summer, did he and she was removed from her job remember that. Yes, that happened over the summer. And so now a judge on Tuesday has allowed that lawsuit that she brought against the DOJ challenging her firing to move forward in federal court. So that was a big day for Maureen. Maybe a tough day for her dad, But she's getting some good news because she is trying to fight the fact that she believes she was fired because simply because she is the daughter of James Comy, which signals a pattern that we're seeing here in the Trump administration.

00:12:56
Speaker 2: No, it could just be a coincidence.

00:12:58
Speaker 1: I just want to leave room for that and that this is on the up and up in some way. He clearly has problems with this family and it's fine, but he's putting them through some.

00:13:09
Speaker 2: Hell right now.

00:13:10
Speaker 1: Again, if people, folks can look at this on the other side of it and say, yes, these are evil people who have been at to this guy, and of course they've been doing I don't know where you see it, but ropes just on its face from a layperson, from an objective standpoint, it reeks.

00:13:25
Speaker 3: It reeks of political revenge, certainly, And Maureen Comy in her lawsuit challenging her firing, she specifically claims in her lawsuit that she was fired as retribution because she's the daughter of James Comy. But she is seeking back pay, she wants her legal fees paid, and now her case is going forward. So just again we talk about how many lawsuits this Trump administration has spurred, what would you say in the thousands? Perhaps at this point, Oh.

00:13:58
Speaker 1: I can't keep up between him and Diddy. They got lawsuits they just piled up. I don't know how they could ever deal with all their legal woes. Seriously, as I said, you can't. Obviously, there is no accurate count of how many lawsuits that the president is involved in the just It's impossible.

00:14:13
Speaker 3: It certainly is. And look, this is another one and certainly the biggest one making headlines right now. And we shall see if James Comey is afforded the option of turning himself in instead of that arrest purp walk that I'm sure the DOJ is hoping for, but that will all have to be worked out between his attorneys and the Department of Justice. And we will certainly stay tuned on this developing story. The former FBI director indicted. And with that, everyone, we appreciate you as always for listening to us. I'm Amy Robock alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you soon.