Former FBI Director James Comey said Monday that the Trump administration\u2019s pursuit of another indictment against him \u2014 this time over an Instagram photo of seashells \u2014 reflects the president\u2019s fixation on going after his critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDonald Trump has a bottomless desire to gain revenge against those who criticized him,\u201d Comey said in his first post-indictment interview with Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said his family had gotten use to the consequences of his Trump criticism, with his daughter being fired as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and his son-in-law resigning as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a cost to speaking up in this strange era, awful era we\u2019re in now,\u201d Comey said. \u201cI\u2019m not gonna be quiet; I\u2019m going to continue to speak about what I believe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comey said he was innocent of the allegation that he threatened the president via a seashells photo, adding that Trump seemed to be obsessed with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am going to continue to speak up because I have grandchildren, and someday they\u2019ll be old enough to understand his time, and I want them to know what Pop did during this period of time,\u201d Comey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration secured the indictment late last month from a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where Comey has a beach house. The case centers on a May 2025 Instagram photo of seashells that were arranged to form the numbers \u201c8647,\u201d which the indictment asserts is \u201ca serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump administration officials have said that the case goes beyond just the photo and that investigators collected other pieces of evidence over the 11 months that passed between Comey\u2019s Instagram post and when they sought the indictment last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comey said there is a risk that the country will become \u201cnumb\u201d to what critics have called the weaponization of the Justice Department. He said even he was susceptible. \u201cEven I can feel it, \u2018Oh, the second time, whatever,\u2019\u201d Comey said about the latest indictment. \u201cThis is not normal. This is not who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has called for Comey\u2019s prosecution, and his former aide Lindsey Halligan secured an indictment in September on charges of lying to Congress. The case was invalidated after a judge ruled that Halligan was improperly appointed to her position as a top prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comey\u2019s legal team said they plan to move to dismiss the seashell case, calling it a product of selective and vindictive prosecution, like they did after last year\u2019s indictment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Legal experts across the political spectrum say the new Comey case is built on sand and doubt it can survive legal challenges, especially given the wide variety of ways that \u201c86\u201d \u2014 which is \u201ceveryday lingo\u201d in the restaurant industry \u2014 can be interpreted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comey had said that he and his wife came across the seashell arrangement while they were on a beach walk and that their initial thought was that someone had spelled out an address. His wife, who had worked in a restaurant, recognized the term \u201c87,\u201d and they soon realized it was a political message, and his wife suggested Comey post it, he told Stephen Colbert last year. \u201cCool shell formation on my beach walk,\u201d he wrote in a caption with the post, which he soon deleted amid backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The seashells case was brought forth by U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, W. Ellis Boyle, who was appointed by former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom Boyle hired months ago, NBC News has reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The indictment asserts that \u201ca reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances\u201d would interpret the photo as a threat. But legal experts said that language is outdated, given that current Supreme Court precedent requires prosecutors to show a defendant intended to communicate a threat and had an understanding of the threatening nature of a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sarah Krissoff, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who\u2019s now at the law firm Cozen O\u2019Connor, told NBC News that it\u2019s difficult to get a case dismissed by arguing that the underlying indictment is fundamentally flawed, adding that the \u201cabsurdity\u201d of the charges against Comey may encourage a judge to find a way to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cComey\u2019s legal team will certainly try to make arguments that the indictment is flawed on its face, and generally, those are challenging arguments to win. The law only requires that an indictment sets out the basic elements of a crime. But given the history here and the absurdity of criminal charges in these circumstances, the judge may work hard to find a way to dismiss the indictment early on,\u201d Krissoff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comey\u2019s case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, an appointee of President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Krissoff said that under 2024 Supreme Court precedent, prosecutors must \u201cshow both that there was a true threat and that the defendant intended to make a threat.\u201d Federal prosecutors, she said, may try to argue that the \u201cknowingly and willfully\u201d language in the indictment is enough for it to stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said there\u2019s a \u201cbody of evidence\u201d the Justice Department has collected in the seashells case, but he has not detailed the evidence, citing grand jury secrecy rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n