Senator Lindsey Graham summed up the second federal indictment of James Comey in a single, tidy sentence: “The rule of law applies to everyone, and no one is above the law.” The remark arrived on April 28, after the Justice Department charged the former FBI director over a social media post it says threatened President Donald Trump.
The charge, notably, rests on a photograph of seashells. Comey, vacationing on the North Carolina coast last May, posted an image of shells arranged to read “86 47,” pairing the restaurant slang for removal with a reference to Trump, the 47th president. The department now says the post amounted to a threat to take the president’s life, and a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned two counts.
For all the noise, the salient point is that this is the second time the department has tried. Comey was first indicted in September over testimony he gave in 2020 about the Russia investigation, and a judge later threw that case out after ruling the prosecutor who brought it had been improperly appointed. Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 until Trump fired him in 2017, has spent the years since as one of the president’s sharpest critics. The new filing marks a fresh attempt under a new acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, installed after Trump dismissed Pam Bondi.
It would seem the mechanics have barely changed. Comey posted the photo, removed it the same day, and told investigators he never intended violence, a defense his lawyers will presumably press in court. The indictment counters that a reasonable recipient would read the seashells as a serious expression of intent to do harm.
The reaction split along the usual lines. The FBI director, Kash Patel, said Comey had disgracefully encouraged a threat on the president’s life and posted it for the world to see, while the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee called the case another weaponised prosecution by a vengeful president. Graham’s version was shorter, and, for the department’s purposes, more useful.
Whether the case survives is a separate question. Free speech protections in the United States are expansive, and the first prosecution foundered on procedure rather than merits. Comey’s lawyers have not commented, and his daughter, a former federal prosecutor, won a separate court ruling the same day allowing her own suit against the government to proceed. The indictment, though, is now on file, and the rule of law, as Graham would have it, is being applied to everyone.
Sources
- James Comey Indicted Over Seashell Photo That Allegedly Threatened Trump | iHeart
- DOJ Secures New James Comey Indictment Over Alleged Threat Against Trump – The New York Times
