Former FBI chief James Comey asks to drop charges over Instagram post | Today’s news

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey on Monday urged a US judge to drop charges against him brought by the US government, saying a picture of seashells on a beach he posted on social media was not a call to incite violence against US President Donald Trump and was instead protected political speech, the Associated Press reported.

Comey’s lawyers argued that the government could not prove that a picture of seashells he shared on Instagram, edited to read “86 47,” was a threat against Trump. The slogan, which means “get rid of” or “eject,” has appeared on a number of items sold online and regularly appears on posters during protests.

“However, the government is now selecting Mr. Comey to prosecute one of the president’s most prominent critics for publishing another person’s statements about political opposition,” his lawyer wrote, according to the AP. “This attempt to suppress basic political speech violates both the statutes at issue and the First Amendment.”

This was the second case the Trump administration has filed against Comey in as many months targeting the former FBI chief, who has been a vocal critic of Trump, while Trump has also called him names like a “corrupt piece of trash.”

An earlier case, filed in Virginia, accused Comey of lying to the US Congress, but was dismissed in November 2025. The judge in the case concluded that the prosecutor who indicted Comey, as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James, another known opponent of the president, were illegally hired for the job.

The case against Comey is part of a series of cases filed by the Justice Department in the Trump administration against people with whom the president has a personal problem. Trump’s anger at Comey is the result of his overseeing the first months of the investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the election.

Comey was interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service in 2025 after Trump administration officials said he was advocating violence against the president through an Instagram post. Shortly after, Comey deleted the post, writing, “I didn’t realize some people were associating these numbers with violence” and “I’m against violence of any kind, so I took the post down.”

“Even if ’86 47′ could implausibly be read as an indication of violence, a reasonable observer would still view Mr. Comey’s post as mere political hyperbole, not an actual threat,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “The Supreme Court dismissed the prosecution for threats based on a much more straightforward speech than Mr. Comey’s published here.”

In an interview with Fox News Channel last year, Trump accused Comey of “knowing exactly what that means.”

“The kid knows what that meant,” Trump said. “If you’re the director of the FBI and you don’t know what that meant, it meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

Although the U.S. Department of Justice has not cited any evidence of intent, Attorney General Todd Blanche said earlier this year that prosecutors would show intent in each case “witnesses, documents, with the defendant himself to the extent that is appropriate.”