WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice has brought a new criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, a source familiar with the case said on Tuesday.
The specific charges were not yet clear, nor was it clear where the case would be brought.
Fox News, citing unnamed sources, reported the case was about a social media post Comey made last year that Trump allies interpreted as threatening. The post, which was published on Comey’s Instagram page in May 2025, showed an image of seashells arranged to show the numbers “86 47.”
In U.S. parlance the number 86 can be used as verb meaning to throw somebody out of a bar for being drunk or disorderly, and 47 is code for Trump, the 47th president. U.S. officials investigated Comey in the days following the post, which Comey later deleted.
Comey at the time said he assumed the post was a “political message.”
“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” Comey said.
The indictment would mark the second time the Justice Department under Trump has indicted Comey, a longtime foe of President Donald Trump. Comey was charged with making a false statement and obstructing Congress in September, but a federal judge dismissed the case after finding that the prosecutor who secured the indictment was not lawfully appointed.
The Justice Department has been under pressure to bring criminal charges against Trump’s perceived political enemies, particularly after Trump fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has moved quickly to execute Trump’s demands for the Justice Department, including indicting a prominent civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, last week.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Ryan Patrick Jones; editing by Michelle Nichols and Chizu Nomiyama)
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