DOJ Secures New James Comey Indictment Over Alleged Threat Against Trump

James B. Comey, the previous FBI director, was indicted on Tuesday over a social media put up, signaling a renewed effort by the Justice Department to pursue fees in opposition to him after his bid final yr led to failure.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina charged Mr. Comey with making a risk in opposition to the president and transmitting a risk throughout state traces, based on court docket data.

The case, which facilities on a picture of seashells that Mr. Comey posted on Instagram, is the most recent salvo within the division’s tortured efforts to fulfill the calls for of President Trump to go after longtime targets of his wrath. Under the performing legal professional normal, Todd Blanche, the division has sought to speed up Mr. Trump’s retribution marketing campaign after the president fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, partially, over his dissatisfaction along with her effectiveness in bringing circumstances in opposition to his perceived enemies.

Mr. Comey vowed to struggle the case.

“I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go,” he said in a video statement posted online. Mr. Comey urged Americans to “keep the faith.”

The new Comey fees stems from an incident nearly a year agowhen the previous FBI director, vacationing on the North Carolina coast, posted {a photograph} on social media exhibiting seashells organized to say “86 47,” combining the slang time period “86,” typically used to imply dismissal or take away, with an obvious reference to Mr. Trump, the nation’s forty seventh president.

After an uproar over the put up, Mr. Comey deleted it, saying that he didn’t know that it could possibly be seen as having a violent connotation and that he opposed violence of any form.

Members of the administration, in addition to Mr. Trump’s household, declared that the that means of “86” was to kill, and that the seashell message amounted to a risk to assassinate the president.

According to court docket data, the case was assigned to Judge Louise W. Flanagan of the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, an appointee of President George W. Bush whose courthouse is in New Bern, NC

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the highest Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, denounced the case as an indication that the Justice Department’s leaders have been “desperate to continue to appease Donald Trump by appealing to his worst instincts and need for petty retribution.”

“Just 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,” he added.

At a information convention on Tuesday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, stated that Mr. Comey “disgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump’s life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see.”

The three-page indictment makes an analogous declare, asserting that “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret” the message written in seashells “as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump.”

Mr. Comey “did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the president of the United States,” the doc fees.

Showing a defendant’s intent is a vital a part of a prison trial. Asked at a information convention how prosecutors deliberate to indicate that Mr. Comey supposed to threaten Mr. Trump’s security, Mr. Blanche stated: “You prove intent with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself,” including, “and that’s how we’ll prove intent in this case.”

Court data point out an arrest warrant was additionally issued for Mr. Comey, however it was not instantly clear if the authorities would permit him to self-surrender. Mr. Blanche stated the preparations had but to be labored out with Mr. Comey’s attorneys.

After Mr. Comey posted the seashell picture, the Secret Service tracked the situation of Mr. Comey and his spouse as they traveled from their trip spot to their residence in Northern Virginia.

The Secret Service interviewed him by telephone that night, and Mr. Comey stated he had no try and trigger the president hurt. The subsequent day, I sat for an in-person interview. Mr. Blanche stated that the case had been beneath investigation all the time, difficult by authorized guidelines involving digital proof from Mr. Comey, who’s a lawyer.

The indictment additionally seeks to find out “any property, real or personal, which constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the said offense.” It is unclear what proceeds the Justice Department believes Mr. Comey made out of posting the seashells photograph on-line.

It was the second time within the final yr that the Justice Department sought to carry fees in opposition to Mr. Comey. The first indictment in opposition to him was thrown out by a decide, and different efforts in opposition to Mr. Trump’s targets have failed within the face of grand juries or judges.

Last September, Mr. Comey was indicted by a grand jury in Virginiaaccused of mendacity and obstructing a congressional investigation over testimony he gave in 2020. That indictment got here after Mr. Trump fired the US legal professional within the Eastern District of Virginia after he and profession prosecutors within the workplace had decided the proof didn’t help prison fees in opposition to Mr. Comey.

In the autumn, Mr. Trump intensified his public stress marketing campaign on the Justice Department. He publicly referred to as upon Ms. Bondi to make use of her energy to go after adversaries he has described as “scum,” together with Mr. Comey.

Ms. Bondi appeared to embrace the transfer in a social media put up, with out mentioning Mr. Comey by identify, writing: “No one is above the law.”

The president promptly put in Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide with no earlier prosecutorial expertise, because the US legal professional in Eastern Virginia. Ms. Halligan rapidly secured a grand jury indictment in opposition to Mr. Comey, after which one other in an unrelated case in opposition to New York’s legal professional normal, Letitia James, the New York legal professional normal who sued Mr. Trump for inflating the value of his business assets.

Both indictments were dismissed in Novemberafter a decide dominated that the Trump administration’s appointment of Ms. Halligan didn’t comply with federal regulation for such positions.

Even although a decide dominated that sure proof within the Comey case was off-limits to prosecutors, the Trump administration has signaled its intent to proceed its pursuit of Mr. Comey.

Mr. Comey, a former federal prosecutor and deputy legal professional normal, turned FBI director in 2013, and was fired by Mr. Trump in 2017 because the company was investigating whether or not Mr. Trump’s 2016 election marketing campaign had conspired with Russian intelligence operatives.

Mr. Comey’s firing led to the appointment of a particular counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to supervise the Russia investigation, who in the end neither accused Mr. Trump of a criminal offense nor exonerated him.

Mr. Trump’s enmity in opposition to Mr. Comey solely intensified through the years, as he railed in opposition to what he referred to as a “witch hunt.”

Mr. Comey, for his half, turned a public critic of the president, evaluating him to a mafia boss. During the 2024 marketing campaign, he stated {that a} second Trump presidency would pose “a danger to all Americans.”

News of Mr. Comey’s indictment got here the identical day that his daughter, Maurene Comey, who was fired as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan final yr, gained a court docket ruling permitting her to proceed with a lawsuit in opposition to the federal government. She asserts that she was fired due to Mr. Trump’s animosity towards her father, or due to her “perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”

Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.