Former FBI chief James Comey seeks dismissal of charges over Instagram seashell post
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey, on Monday urged a US judge to throw out the charges against him levied by
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey, on Monday urged a US judge to throw out the charges against him levied by the US government, saying that a picture of seashells on a beach that he had posted on social media was not a call to incite violence against US President Donald Trump, and was instead protected political speech, as per a report by Associated Press. Lawyers of Comey have argued that the government cannot prove that the picture of seashells he had shared on Instagram arranged to read "86 47" constituted a threat against Trump. The slogan, which means "get rid of" or 'eject", has been featured on a number of items sold online and is regularly found on placards during protests. "But the government now singles out Mr. Comey to prosecute one of the President’s most prominent critics for publishing another person’s statement of political opposition," his attorney's wrote, as per AP.
“That attempt to suppress core political speech contravenes both the statutes at issue and the First Amendment.” This was the second case filed against Comey by the Trump administration in months, targetting the former FBI chief who has been vocal about his criticism of Trump, while the latter has also called him names like a “corrupt piece of garbage”. The earlier case, which was filed in Virginia, had accused Comey of lying to the US Congress, but was dismissed in 2025 November. A judge in the case had concluded that the prosecutor who had charged Comey as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is another known adversary of the president, was illegally hired for the job. The case against Comey is part of a series of cases the Justice Department in Trump's administration has been filing against people the president has a personal problem with.
Trump's ire for Comey is a result of him oversighting the early months of a probe into whether the 2016 presidential campaign of Trump was done in coordination with Russia in order to sway the election results. The US Secret Service had interviewed Comey in 2025 after officials in the Trump administration claimed he was advocating violence against the President with the Instagram post. Shortly after, Comey deleted the post, writing, “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” “Even if ‘86 47’ could implausibly be read to suggest violence, a reasonable observer would still understand Mr. Comey’s post as mere political hyperbole, not a true threat,” Comey's lawyers wrote. “The Supreme Court has rejected threats prosecutions based on speech far more directly threatening than Mr. Comey’s seashells post here.” Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview last year, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant.” “A child knows what that meant,” Trump said.
The BriefWire