Three days ago, a madman rushed a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Dinner to assassinate Donald Trump.
Now the man who spent years calling Trump a threat to democracy just got indicted for threatening Trump's life.
Click to find out what James Comey posted on Instagram that a federal grand jury says crossed the line.
Comey Knew Exactly What He Was Doing
The post went up May 15, 2025.
Comey captioned it "Cool shell formation on my beach walk" – as if the former Director of the FBI stumbled onto a beach in North Carolina and had no idea what "86 47" meant.
Seashells arranged to call for the assassination of the 47th president.
"A child knows what that meant," Trump said at the time. "If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination."
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2049244016256995760?s=20
Comey deleted the post the same day and issued an apology, writing that he "didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence."
That apology is now evidence.
Kash Patel said it plainly at the DOJ press conference Tuesday: "Shortly after posting that threat, he deleted that threat and then issued an apology."
Blanche was asked how prosecutors prove intent.
"How do you prove intent?" he said. "In any case, you prove intent with witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself, to the extent it's appropriate."
The grand jury saw all of it and returned a two-count indictment anyway.
This Is Comey's Second Indictment in Eight Months
The first case against Comey – accusing him of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding – was thrown out in November after a judge ruled the Trump administration had unlawfully appointed a Virginia U.S. attorney to handle the case.
Comey walked free on a procedural technicality.
This time, the Eastern District of North Carolina filed the charges – where Comey has a beach house and where he posted the photo – and Acting U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle is prosecuting.
Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Comey responded in a video Tuesday saying he's "still innocent" and "still not afraid."
He also said this is "not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be."
https://twitter.com/mazemoore/status/2049314492870255074?s=20
The irony of the man who weaponized the FBI against Trump in 2016 lecturing America about how justice is supposed to work is something.
The Left Called for This and Then Played Innocent
Three days before Comey's indictment, Cole Tomas Allen forced his way past a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton carrying two firearms and a set of knives.
Trump was inside the ballroom.
Vance was inside. Blanche was inside. Patel was inside.
Allen's manifesto described targeting Trump administration officials and called himself the "Friendly Federal Assassin."
This was the third assassination attempt against Trump since 2024.
And it happened the same week Democrats and their media allies were screaming that Trump is a fascist, a dictator, and an existential threat to America – the same rhetoric they've used since 2016 to justify increasingly unhinged responses from the left.
The left has been loading that gun for years.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, said it straight.
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2049461919644278883?s=20
"The third assassination attempt against President Trump on Saturday made this crystal clear: the Justice Department must prosecute those who threaten to assassinate the president,” he said. “No one has a First Amendment right to do this. No one is above the law, especially not a former director of the FBI who should know better."
The Left wants to reframe this as a free speech case.
Blanche killed that argument Tuesday: "It's not a very difficult line to look at."
He added: "You are not allowed to threaten the President of the United States of America. That's not my decision. That's Congress' decision in a statute that they passed that we charge multiple times a year."
Federal law – 18 U.S.C. § 871 – has been on the books for over a century, and the DOJ uses it against ordinary Americans every year.
The only thing unusual about this case is that it's the former head of the FBI sitting in the defendant's chair.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Federal Grand Jury Indicts Former FBI Director James Comey for Threats to Harm President Trump," Justice.gov, April 28, 2026.
- FBI Director Kash Patel, Remarks at DOJ Press Conference on Comey Indictment, FBI.gov, April 28, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Suspect in White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Charged with Attempt to Assassinate the President," Justice.gov, April 27, 2026.
- Brooke Singman, "James Comey Faces Indictment Over Seashell Post Amid First Amendment Fears," Fox News, April 28, 2026.