James Comey spent years telling Americans Donald Trump was a threat to democracy.
Now the Justice Department just indicted him for the second time – and it happened the same day a federal judge let his daughter's lawsuit against that same DOJ move forward.
These aren't coincidences – they're the most chaotic 24 hours in James Comey's post-FBI life, and the story of what he posted on Instagram last year is one America still hasn't fully reckoned with.
The Shell Photo That Launched a Federal Indictment
In May 2025, Comey posted a photograph to Instagram.
It showed shells arranged on a beach in a pattern that read: 86 47.
In restaurant slang, "86" means to eliminate or remove something permanently.
Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States.
Comey deleted the post the same day and claimed he hadn't realized what the numbers meant.
"I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message," he wrote in a follow-up. "I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down."
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Trump rejected that explanation on the spot.
"He knew exactly what that meant," Trump told Bret Baier on Fox News. "A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant 'assassination,' and it says it loud and clear."
Trump is right.
James Comey ran the FBI for years.
He oversaw counterintelligence operations, threat assessments, and coded communication analysis for the most powerful law enforcement agency on earth.
The idea that a former FBI director stumbled onto an "86 47" shell formation on a beach – photographed it, posted it publicly, and genuinely had no idea what it communicated – is not a defense.
It's an insult to everyone paying attention.
The First Indictment That Didn't Stick – and Why the Second One Matters
This isn't Comey's first rodeo with a federal indictment.
In September 2025, the DOJ charged him with lying to Congress about press leaks.
A federal judge threw that case out – not because Comey was innocent, but because the prosecutor handling the case had been improperly appointed.
A procedural escape hatch.
Now the DOJ is back, and this time the charge stems from a public Instagram post that hundreds of thousands of people saw before Comey scrubbed it.
The specific counts haven't been released yet, but sources confirmed the indictment to Fox News on Monday afternoon.
Comey's legal team has declined to comment.
Just hours before the indictment landed, a federal judge in New York allowed a separate lawsuit by Comey's daughter Maurene to move forward.
Maurene Comey – a former federal prosecutor herself – claims DOJ fired her solely because her father is James Comey, or because of her perceived political beliefs.
The judge didn't dismiss it.
That means the Comey family is now simultaneously suing the Justice Department and being prosecuted by it – on the same day.
The Day the Comey Family Declared War on the DOJ and the DOJ Fired Back
For four years under Biden, James Comey gave interviews, wrote op-eds, and positioned himself as the conscience of American law enforcement.
He called Trump a liar.
He lectured the country about norms.
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He watched from a comfortable distance as the institutions he claimed to love were weaponized against the man he helped target in the Russia hoax.
Now the tables have turned.
Lois Lerner targeted conservative nonprofits with the IRS for years, pleaded the Fifth, and retired with her full federal pension.
She never spent a day in court.
James Comey watched that happen and apparently decided the rules don't apply to people like them.
He already slipped off the hook once on a technicality.
This time he left the evidence on Instagram.
Sources:
- David Spunt, Louis Casiano, and Bill Mears, "James Comey indicted again in new Justice Department probe," Fox News, April 28, 2026.
