Published On 4/29/2026
The American judiciary accused former FBI Director James Comey of threatening the life of US President Donald Trump, officials announced on Tuesday, five months after a previous case against him was dropped.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Comey faces one count of “intentionally threatening to kill or cause bodily harm to the President of the United States” and another count of interstate intimidation. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
He added, “I think it is fair to say that threatening anyone’s life is a serious matter and may be considered a crime. The Department of Justice will never tolerate threats to the life of the President of the United States.”
The merits of the case
The indictment issued by a grand jury in North Carolina is based on a post on the Instagram platform by Comey (65 years old) in May of last year, which Trump said included numbers that meant murder.
The indictment issued by the American judiciary states that Comey’s post included the numbers “47” and “86”, while Trump said that “86” was a slang word meaning murder and that “47” was a reference to him being the forty-seventh president.
The indictment indicated that publication It was “a serious expression of intent to harm the President of the United States.”
At the time, Comey apologized for his post and deleted it, stating that he “did not realize that some people associate those numbers with violence.”
This comes three days after a gunman was arrested on charges of attempting to assassinate Trump during a dinner in Washington hosted by the White House Correspondents Association.
False accusation
Comey maintained his innocence of the charges against him, saying, “I am still innocent, I am still not afraid, and I still believe in the independence of the federal judiciary.”
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin denounced the accusation against Comey, saying it was “baseless,” adding, “This is another case of the Department of Justice being used as a weapon of revenge on behalf of a vindictive president.”
In September 2025, Comey was indicted on charges of giving false testimony before Congress as part of a judicial move that was widely considered a campaign of retaliation by President Trump against his political opponents.
But a federal judge dismissed the criminal case against Comey in November of the same year.
Comey was appointed director of the FBI under former President Barack Obama in 2013, and Trump fired him in 2017.
