Comey faces arrest warrant under acting AG Blanche as DOJ presses prosecutions of Trump adversaries
April 28th, 2026: Second Comey indictment in North CarolinaNew here? Follow stories to track developments over time. Create a free account to get updates when stories you care about change.
James Comey deleted an Instagram post within hours—a fifteen-character image of '8647' written above seashells. A North Carolina grand jury charged him with two counts of threatening the President over that same image. The April 28, 2026 indictment is the second federal case Trump's Justice Department brought against the former FBI Director; a Virginia case filed in September 2025 was dismissed when a judge ruled the interim prosecutor unlawfully appointed. Judge Louise Wood Flanagan issued an arrest warrant, though Comey may self-surrender, and he responded on Substack: 'I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid.'
Trump replaced Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 2, 2026 (fired for mishandling the Epstein files and repeated failures to convict his adversaries) with Todd Blanche, his former personal criminal defense attorney, who is now acting attorney general. Comey is one of at least three former officials indicted since Trump returned: John Bolton (former security adviser, unlawfully retaining classified documents), Letitia James (mortgage fraud), and John Brennan (former CIA director, under investigation). Legal scholars have called the First Amendment questions in Comey's case a 'monumental challenge' that could reach the Supreme Court.
Why it matters
When prosecutors pursue criminal threat charges over a deleted social-media post—and the attorney general is replaced with the President's former personal lawyer—the line between political prosecution and law enforcement disappears for every American online.
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Comey indicted over '86 47' seashell photo officials call Trump threat | AP News
Exclusive: Former FBI Director James Comey indicted over alleged 'threat' against Trump | CNN Politics
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"They've turned the Justice Department into a personal grudge list with a federal seal, and yet somehow the man they can't seem to convict keeps posting videos — which suggests that while Washington has mastered the indictment, it has yet to master the execution."
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May 2017 April 2026
A grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicts Comey on two counts of threatening the President under 18 U.S.C. § 871, citing the May 2025 Instagram post.
Judge Louise Wood Flanagan of the Eastern District of North Carolina issued an arrest warrant for Comey alongside the indictment. Prosecutors indicated Comey may be permitted to self-surrender rather than be taken into custody.
Comey posted a video to his Substack account hours after the indictment was announced. His attorney Patrick Fitzgerald issued a written statement saying the defense would 'contest these charges in the courtroom and look forward to vindicating Mr. Comey and the First Amendment.'
President Trump dismissed Pam Bondi as attorney general, citing frustration with her handling of Epstein files and the department's inability to secure convictions against his adversaries. Deputy AG Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal criminal defense attorney, was elevated to acting attorney general.
Federal judge dismisses the Virginia indictment after ruling that interim US Attorney Halligan was unlawfully appointed, voiding her charging authority.
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton is charged with willful retention of classified records related to his memoir.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is charged with mortgage fraud, the second prosecution of a former Trump adversary in two weeks.
A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicts Comey on false-statements and obstruction counts tied to 2020 Senate testimony, signed by interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan.
Comey publishes an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to spell '8647' and deletes it hours later, saying he had not understood any violent interpretation.
Trump dismisses FBI Director Comey during the bureau's Russia investigation, triggering the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller eight days later.
3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.
An eighteen-year-old draft protester at a Washington rally said that if forced to carry a rifle, 'the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.' He was convicted under the same threats statute now used against Comey, 18 U.S.C. § 871.
The Supreme Court reversed the conviction in a per curiam opinion, ruling that political hyperbole is not a 'true threat' even when its words name the President.
Watts established the constitutional floor for federal threat prosecutions: the statute reaches only statements a reasonable person would understand as a serious expression of intent to harm. Courts have applied that test to social-media speech ever since.
Comey's defense will almost certainly cite Watts to argue that a deleted, ambiguous numeric image is constitutionally protected hyperbole. The case is the central legal precedent on which this prosecution turns.
The Justice Department indicted seven-term Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on false-statement charges weeks before the 2008 election. A jury convicted him; he lost his Senate seat by 3,724 votes.
Months later, the new Attorney General moved to dismiss the conviction after discovering prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence. The judge appointed a special investigator who issued a 500-page report finding 'systematic' misconduct.
The Stevens collapse became the canonical example of a high-profile federal prosecution undone by errors inside the Justice Department itself. It prompted lasting reforms to discovery practice in federal criminal cases.
The first Comey case was dismissed not on the merits but because of a defect inside DOJ—an unlawful prosecutor appointment. Stevens illustrates how procedural failures at the department can sink even well-publicized indictments, and how the government typically responds by reorganizing leadership.
Federal prosecutors charged former presidential candidate John Edwards with using nearly $1 million in campaign donations to conceal an extramarital affair, applying campaign-finance law in a novel way.
After a six-week trial, a North Carolina jury acquitted Edwards on one count and hung on the others. The Justice Department declined to retry him.
The Edwards case stood as a warning against pursuing politically prominent defendants on contested legal theories. Prosecutors lost despite years of investigation and substantial evidence about the underlying conduct.
Like Edwards, the Comey threats case asks a North Carolina jury to apply federal law to facts that don't fit its usual contours. Edwards shows that aggressive charging theories often fail at trial even when the defendant's conduct is unflattering.