Former FBI director James Comey appears in court over Trump seashell 'threat'

Former FBI chief James Comey has appeared in court over claims he threatened Donald Trump's life in a social media post featuring seashells.

Mr Comey appeared briefly at the Virginia hearing after being indicted yesterday, but did not speak or enter a plea and was allowed to walk free without restrictions.

He maintains his innocence and the president's opponents have dismissed the charges as a cynical act of revenge.

Mr Comey's lawyer told the court on Wednesday he would argue it was a vindictive prosecution.

The ex-FBI director was fired by Mr Trump in 2017 amid a bureau probe into potential ties between Russia and his presidential campaign.

Mr Comey said he also resisted pledging loyalty to him at a personal dinner, a request that so unnerved him he noted it in a memo at the time.

The court case centres on a May 2025 Instagram post in which Mr Comey showed shells arranged on a beach to show the numbers "86 47."

In the US, 86 is commonly used in restaurants when an item is sold out or to refuse to serve a customer.

It can also informally mean to "cancel" or "get rid of", while 47 refers to Mr Trump, the 47th president.

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Trump said "86" was a term used by mobsters.

"People think of it as something having to do with disappearing, but the mob uses that term to say when they want to kill somebody," he told reporters.

Last May, the president told Fox News that Mr Comey knew "exactly what that meant".

"If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear," he said.

Mr Comey previously said he didn't realise the numbers could be linked to violence and deleted the post when people mentioned it.

Responding to the indictment in a Substack video on Tuesday, Mr Comey said: "I am still innocent, I am still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let's go."

Mr Trump's administration previously indicted Mr Comey on charges he lied to Congress in 2020, but the case was dismissed last year.

Legal experts say the current indictment - which accuses him of acting "knowingly and wilfully" - will be difficult to prove.

Prosecutors must show Mr Comey intended to communicate a threat, or at least recklessly dismissed the possibility the message could be interpreted as a threat.

John Fishwick, a former US attorney in Virginia, said he believed prosecutors would argue "you were head of the FBI, you knew what these terms meant and you said them out to the whole world as a threat to the president".

He said it would be challenging in light of Mr Comey's free speech rights under the First Amendment.

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Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, wrote on Tuesday that the case raised "troubling free speech issues".

"In the end, it must be the Constitution, not Comey, that drives the analysis and this indictment is unlikely to withstand constitutional scrutiny," he added.

(c) Sky News 2026: Former FBI director James Comey appears in court over Trump seashell 'threat'