ALEXANDRIA, VA. — Former FBI Director James Comey appeared Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, for his first court appearance on charges that he threatened President Donald Trump through a social media post showing seashells arranged in the numbers "86 47." Comey did not enter a plea.

Comey was indicted Tuesday in North Carolina on two counts: making a threat to take the life of and inflict bodily harm on the president, and transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to kill the president. The Justice Department contends the numbers in the photograph he posted last year amounted to a threat against Trump, the 47th president.

The indictment states that a reasonable recipient familiar with the circumstances would interpret the seashell photo as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to Trump. The case was charged in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the location of the beach where Comey said he found the shells. Comey deleted the post shortly after publishing it and was voluntarily interviewed by the Secret Service last year, but was not charged with making a false statement to agents.

"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 said. He later said, "I'm still innocent, I'm still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So, let's go."

At the hearing, Federal Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick read the charges and denied the Justice Department's attempts to set conditions of release, stating that conditions were not necessary in this case or in a previous indictment. Comey, represented by attorneys Patrick Fitzgerald and Jessica Carmichael, nodded as he was read his rights and smiled at his family as he left the courtroom. His legal team said it intends to file motions to dismiss on the grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution and asked a judge to order the preservation of government records.

The threats indictment is the second against Comey in the past year. He was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2025 for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. That case was dismissed on grounds that the U.S. attorney who brought it was illegally appointed, and the Justice Department is appealing.

Prosecutors will have to prove that Comey intended to threaten the president's life or intended to transmit a threat in his social media post. "There's a robust First Amendment defense if you can't show that either the speech, or the symbolic speech or the expression satisfies that intent requirement," legal contributor Jessica Levinson said. Referring to the charges, she said, "They're based on seashells."

Law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in an opinion piece that, "Despite being one of Comey's longest critics, the indictment raises 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, "If it did, it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States."