Former FBI Director James Comey indicted again under Trump

Chris Strohm and Zoe Tillman, Bloomberg News on Apr 28, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for a second time since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The charges were brought by prosecutors in North Carolina, said the people who asked not to be identified discussing a case that hasn’t been made public. It marks the latest instance of prosecutors during the Trump administration pursuing criminal investigations against the president’s perceived political enemies.

CNN earlier reported the indictment. One of the people said the indictment was related to a photo last May that Comey posted on social media, in which the numbers 86 and 47 had been formed by sea shells. Critics said that could have been a reference to killing Trump, the 47th president.

Comey deleted the post at the time and said that was not his intent.

A federal judge previously dismissed an earlier, unrelated indictment against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and obstruction related to testimony he gave in 2020. During Trump’s first term, he fired Comey from heading the FBI, which was investigating foreign interference in the 2016 election.

Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 to 2017, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department did not have an immediate comment.

After facing criticism for the photo, Comey wrote in a later post that he taken the photo of the shells during a beach walk because he “assumed” they were “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 wrote at the time.

Bloomberg News previously reported that the Secret Service opened an investigation soon after into whether there was any threat to Trump. The term “86” is typically used as slang to mean “to eject, dismiss, or remove” or “to reject, discontinue, or get rid of,” according to Merriam-Webster.

The Justice Department’s first indictment against Comey was tossed out in November after a federal judge concluded the interim US attorney serving in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed. The same judge also dismissed a criminal case against New York Attorney General Letitia James on the same grounds.

The government is in the midst of appealing those rulings before the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Separately on Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Maurene Comey, the daughter of James Comey, could proceed with a civil lawsuit alleging she was wrongfully fired from her position as a federal prosecutor because of the bad blood between her father and Trump.

After an unrelated incident over the weekend, a California man was charged with allegedly trying to kill Trump at a Washington gala dinner. Cole Tomas Allen, 31, made his first appearance in federal court on Monday. He is also being charged with gun offenses.

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—With assistance from Jimmy Jenkins.