James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, was indicted on Tuesday over a social media post, signaling a renewed effort by the Justice Department to pursue charges against him after its bid last year ended in failure.<\/p>\n
A federal grand jury in North Carolina charged Mr. Comey with making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat across state lines, according to court records.<\/p>\n
The case, which centers on an image of seashells that Mr. Comey posted on Instagram, is the latest salvo in the department\u2019s tortured efforts to satisfy the demands of President Trump to go after longtime targets of his wrath. Under the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, the department has sought to accelerate Mr. Trump\u2019s retribution campaign after the president fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, in part, over his dissatisfaction with her effectiveness in bringing cases against his perceived enemies.<\/p>\n
Mr. Comey vowed to fight the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still innocent, I\u2019m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let\u2019s go,\u201d he said in a video statement posted online<\/a>. Mr. Comey urged Americans to \u201ckeep the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n The new Comey charge stems from an incident nearly a year ago<\/a>, when the former F.B.I. director, vacationing on the North Carolina coast, posted a photograph on social media showing seashells arranged to say \u201c86 47,\u201d combining the slang term \u201c86,\u201d often used to mean dismiss or remove, with an apparent reference to Mr. Trump, the country\u2019s 47th president.<\/p>\n After an uproar ensued over the post, Mr. Comey deleted it, saying that he did not know that it could be seen as having a violent connotation and that he opposed violence of any kind.<\/p>\n Members of the administration, as well as Mr. Trump\u2019s family, declared that the meaning of \u201c86\u201d was to kill, and that the seashell message amounted to a threat to assassinate the president.<\/p>\n According to court records, the case was assigned to Judge Louise W. Flanagan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, an appointee of President George W. Bush whose courthouse is in New Bern, N.C.<\/p>\n Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, denounced the case as a sign that the Justice Department\u2019s leaders were \u201cdesperate to continue to appease Donald Trump by appealing to his worst instincts and need for petty retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust like the last baseless indictment against Mr. Comey, this is another case of a weaponized Justice Department lashing out on behalf of a vengeful president,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n At a news conference on Tuesday, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, said that Mr. Comey \u201cdisgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump\u2019s life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see.\u201d<\/p>\n The three-page indictment makes a similar claim, asserting that \u201ca reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret\u201d the message written in seashells \u201cas a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Comey \u201cdid knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the president of the United States,\u201d the document charges.<\/p>\n Showing a defendant\u2019s intent is a critical part of a criminal trial. Asked at a news conference how prosecutors planned to show that Mr. Comey intended to threaten Mr. Trump\u2019s safety, Mr. Blanche said: \u201cYou prove intent with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself,\u201d adding, \u201cand that\u2019s how we\u2019ll prove intent in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n Court records indicate an arrest warrant was also issued for Mr. Comey, but it was not immediately clear if the authorities would allow him to self-surrender. Mr. Blanche said the arrangements had yet to be worked out with Mr. Comey\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n After Mr. Comey posted the seashell image, the Secret Service tracked the location of Mr. Comey and his wife as they traveled from their vacation spot to their home in Northern Virginia.<\/p>\n The Secret Service interviewed him by phone that evening, and Mr. Comey said he had no intent to cause the president harm. The next day, he sat for an in-person interview. Mr. Blanche said that the case had been under investigation the entire time, complicated by legal rules involving digital evidence from Mr. Comey, who is a lawyer.<\/p>\n The indictment also seeks forfeiture of \u201cany property, real or personal, which constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the said offense.\u201d It is unclear what proceeds the Justice Department believes Mr. Comey made from posting the seashells photo online.<\/p>\n It was the second time in the past year that the Justice Department sought to bring charges against Mr. Comey. The first indictment against him was thrown out by a judge, and other efforts against Mr. Trump\u2019s targets have faltered in the face of grand juries or judges.<\/p>\n Last September, Mr. Comey was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia<\/a>, accused of lying and obstructing a congressional investigation over testimony he gave in 2020. That indictment came after Mr. Trump fired the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia after he and career prosecutors in the office had determined the evidence did not support criminal charges against Mr. Comey.<\/p>\n In the fall, Mr. Trump intensified his public pressure campaign on the Justice Department. He publicly called upon Ms. Bondi to use her power to go after adversaries he has described as \u201cscum,\u201d including Mr. Comey.<\/p>\n Ms. Bondi appeared to embrace the move in a social media post, without mentioning Mr. Comey by name, writing: \u201cNo one is above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n The president promptly installed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide with no previous prosecutorial experience, as the U.S. attorney in Eastern Virginia. Ms. Halligan quickly secured a grand jury indictment against Mr. Comey, and then another in an unrelated case against New York\u2019s attorney general, Letitia James, the New York attorney general who sued Mr. Trump for inflating the value of his business assets<\/a>.<\/p>\n