Federal Judge Sets July 15 Trial for James Comey on Charges He Threatened Trump's Life Over Seashell Photo

Former FBI Director James Comey will stand trial on July 15 in federal court in New Bern, North Carolina, on two felony charges accusing him of threatening President Donald Trump's life, U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan ruled Friday, fast-tracking a politically charged prosecution that the defense has signaled it will fight as a "selective and vindictive" use of federal law. An arraignment is scheduled for June 30. Comey faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of both counts.

The indictment, returned by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina, accuses Comey of "knowingly and willfully" communicating a threat in interstate commerce stemming from a May 2025 Instagram post that showed an arrangement of seashells spelling out "86 47." Prosecutors, led by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, argue that the digits constitute coded incitement: "86," they say, is slang for eliminating or removing someone, while "47" refers to Trump as the 47th president. The post was deleted within hours of going up, after Comey said he learned some viewers had interpreted it as a call for violence. He has consistently denied any threatening intent and described the image as a political message he stumbled on while walking on a beach.

Judge Flanagan, a 2007 appointee of President George W. Bush, set the July 15 trial date over defense objections that more time was needed for discovery and pretrial motions. Comey's lawyers had asked for a fall trial, citing the volume of grand-jury materials, the novelty of the threat statute as applied to a social-media post, and the parallel appellate dispute over Comey's earlier dismissed indictment. In November 2025 a different federal judge threw out the first set of charges, ruling that the interim U.S. Attorney who signed the indictment had been unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department's appeal of that dismissal remains pending in the Fourth Circuit, and Justice prosecutors told Flanagan they intend to introduce additional evidence at trial beyond the Instagram image itself.

Trump, reacting to the order from the South Lawn on Friday, called Comey "a dirty cop who tried to destroy this country" and predicted a conviction. The defense countered hours later with a written statement from lead attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, saying Comey is being prosecuted "for a photograph of seashells" by an administration that has "abandoned the principle that the Justice Department serves the public, not the president's grudges." Fitzgerald told reporters the defense will file motions to dismiss on First Amendment grounds and to compel production of communications between the White House and Justice Department prior to the indictment.

The case is the most consequential federal prosecution of a former FBI director in U.S. history and lands as Trump's Justice Department pursues a broader campaign against perceived adversaries. A separate grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia has been investigating former CIA Director John Brennan, and senior Justice officials have publicly mused about charging former Special Counsel Jack Smith. Legal scholars say Comey's trial, which is expected to last roughly two weeks, will test how narrowly federal courts read the threat statute in the era of social-media speech. "This case will either rewrite where the line sits between protected political expression and a true threat," Northwestern Law professor Andrew Koppelman said in an interview, "or it will fall apart on the First Amendment. There is no comfortable middle."