Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for a second time by the Department of Justice, according to CNN. The indictment reportedly surrounds a post Comey made last year featuring seashells arranged to read “86 47.” The phrase is believed to mean removing President Trump.
The specific charges and counts are not immediately clear.
After removing the 2025 post, Comey wrote, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. 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.”
He also told MSNBC that he and his wife encountered the shell arrangement during a beach walk and saw it as a clever visual pun. “We stood over it and I said, ‘I think it’s some kind of political message.’” Comey said his wife explained that during her time working in a restaurant “86” meant to “remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients,’” he claimed.
The latest indictment comes as Comey’s daughter, Maurene, is suing the DOJ over what she believes to be an unlawful dismissal. A judge ruled that her lawsuit may continue, blocking the DOJ’s effort to move the case out of court.
“Despite her exemplary performance, Ms. Comey was abruptly fired on July 16, 2025, the day after the U.S. Attorney’s Office had asked her to take the lead on a major public corruption case and just three months after her latest receipt of an ‘Outstanding’ review,” the filing says. “Defendants did not identify any cause or provide Ms. Comey any due process for her removal.”
“Ms. Comey’s termination—without cause, without advance notice, and without any opportunity to contest it—was unlawful and unconstitutional,” it notes. “In addition to her fundamental constitutional rights, Ms. Comey had statutory protections under the Civil Service Reform Act (‘CSRA’) that governed how and why she could be terminated, including specific prohibitions against termination for discriminatory reasons such as political affiliation. Her termination violated every one of those protections.”
