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In a high-profile development echoing deep political divisions in the second Trump administration, former FBI Director James Comey turned himself in to law enforcement authorities Wednesday to face a criminal charge alleging his viral 2025 Instagram post amounted to a death threat against sitting U.S. President Donald Trump.

The case traces back to a May 2025 social media post from Comey, who shared a photograph of beachcombed seashells arranged on sand to spell out the phrase “86 47”. Federal prosecutors argue the coded message is a clear call for violence against Trump, the 47th U.S. president: the slang term “86” is widely understood to mean “eliminate” or “get rid of”, they claim.

Comey, a longstanding public critic of Trump, has repeatedly denied any intentional wrongdoing. He maintains he had no knowledge of the phrase’s alleged violent connotations when he posted the image, and has leveled counterclaims that the prosecution is driven entirely by political retribution. During a brief initial hearing at a federal court in Virginia, Comey declined to speak on the record, but his legal team has signaled they will frame the prosecution as a vindictive effort to punish Comey for his public criticism of the president.

This indictment marks the second time the Department of Justice has brought criminal charges against Comey under the second Trump administration. Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has openly suggested that DOJ officials should pursue investigations against his political opponents. Comey is not the only high-profile foe of the president to face indictment; New York Attorney General Tish James, who brought civil fraud charges against Trump before his second term, has also been targeted by federal prosecutors.

Attorney General Todd Blanche pushed back hard against claims of political motivation during comments to CBS News, a partner outlet of the BBC. “Of course, it’s serious when you threaten the President of the United States,” Blanche said. “Anybody that tries to put forward some narrative that this is just about seashells, or something to the contrary is missing the point. You cannot threaten the President of the United States.” Blanche also drew a connection between the Comey case and a recent security incident at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, where an intruder attempted to rush the ballroom where Trump was speaking before being stopped by U.S. Secret Service agents.

After the original post sparked widespread public backlash, Comey deleted the image and issued a follow-up statement on Instagram. “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assume were a political message,” he wrote. “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.”

In the official indictment, prosecutors argued that any reasonable person familiar with the current political context would interpret the seashell image as a serious threat against the president’s life. The single charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison, a fine, or both, if Comey is convicted.

Even among some Republican allies of the president, the strength of the government’s case has drawn skepticism. North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis told reporters Wednesday that he hoped prosecutors have more evidence beyond the photograph itself. “Otherwise, I just think it’s another example where we’re going to regret this because we’re setting a fairly low bar,” Tillis said. Multiple legal experts have also publicly questioned whether the charge meets the standard for a criminal threat, given Comey’s immediate removal of the post and disavowal of any violent intent.

This is not Comey’s first brush with criminal prosecution under the second Trump administration. He was originally indicted by a federal grand jury last September on charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation. Comey entered a not guilty plea in October, but the entire case was dismissed by a federal judge in November. U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie tossed the original indictment on the grounds that lead prosecutor Lindsey Halligan had not received a valid appointment to serve as U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia, and therefore lacked authority to bring charges before the grand jury. Halligan is also the lead prosecutor on the new threat charge against Comey.

The fractious public feud between former and current U.S. President Donald Trump and departing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stands as one of the most bitter confrontations between a sitting American president and a central bank leader in modern history. Since Trump reclaimed the White House following the 2024 election, he has launched nonstop attacks on Powell, driven entirely by his frustration that the Federal Reserve has not cut interest rates at the speed the president has demanded. As Powell prepares to exit his post to make way for Trump’s nominee Kevin Warsh, a look back at the series of high-profile clashes that shaped this unprecedented relationship reveals deep threats to the central bank’s long-guarded independence.

Ironically, it was Trump himself who first appointed Powell to the role of Fed chair during his first presidential term. Back in November 2017, Trump argued the nation’s central bank needed “strong, sound and steady leadership,” and publicly praised Powell as a “strong, committed, smart” candidate perfectly suited for the position. But after President Joe Biden reappointed Powell to a second term, Trump soured on the Fed chair dramatically once he returned to the Oval Office, even claiming he was shocked Biden extended Powell’s tenure. “He’s a terrible Fed chair,” Trump told reporters last July, ignoring his own role in bringing Powell to the job in the first place.

Trump’s criticism has not been limited to policy disagreements; he has repeatedly resorted to personal insults and derogatory nicknames for the nation’s top central banker. After the Fed cut rates three times in 2025, central bank officials opted to hold rates steady to assess how Trump’s new trade tariffs would impact persistent inflation. For every decision to hold rates that ran counter to Trump’s demands, the president lashed out. In April of last year, he dubbed Powell “Too Late”, and declared that Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough.” That set the tone for months of attacks that followed: Trump has called Powell a “numbskull”, “moron”, and “a real dummy” in media interviews, and doubled down on these insults on social media. In one typical viral social media post, Trump wrote: “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair. He is costing our Country TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS, in addition to one of the most incompetent, or corrupt, renovations of a building(s) in the history of construction! Put another way, ‘Too Late’ is a TOTAL LOSER, and our Country is paying the price!”

The conflict spilled beyond interest rate policy into a public disagreement over the ballooning cost of a planned renovation of Federal Reserve office buildings. During a joint on-site visit where both men wore hard hats, Trump claimed the total cost of the project had ballooned to $3.1 billion, well above the original $2.7 billion estimate. Standing directly beside the president, Powell immediately disputed the claim, telling Trump he was not aware of any such cost overrun. When Trump pulled out a document he claimed proved the higher total, Powell countered that Trump had incorrectly added the cost of a separate completed building constructed five years earlier to the renovation project’s total. When asked how he would handle a project manager who went over budget as a former real estate developer, Trump did not mince words: “Generally speaking, I’d fire him.”

Tensions escalated to a new level in early January, when Powell released a Sunday evening video revealing that federal prosecutors had opened a criminal investigation that could lead to an indictment over testimony he gave to a Senate committee about the renovation project. Powell, who had largely stayed silent about Trump’s attacks for months, framed the Department of Justice’s move as part of the administration’s sustained campaign to pressure the Fed. He argued that the investigation raised existential questions about the central bank’s core mission: “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” Powell said in the video. The development immediately created political headwinds for Warsh’s nomination: Republican Senator Thom Tillis announced he would not support confirming Warsh while the investigation remained open, calling the probe a “serious threat” to the central bank’s independence. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice dropped the criminal investigation, clearing the way for Tillis to announce he would now support Warsh’s confirmation ahead of a full Senate vote.

Fresh evidence submitted by U.S. prosecutors has laid bare detailed pre-attack planning by the man accused of storming last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in a bid to assassinate former President Donald Trump, according to court documents filed this week. The 31-year-old suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, has entered a not guilty plea to all charges against him, including the attempted assassination of the sitting former president. Prosecutors argue he should be held without bond ahead of his trial, citing what they call a meticulously planned, violent plot that targeted senior U.S. government leadership.

The newly unsealed memorandum from the U.S. Department of Justice includes never-before-seen photographs that prosecutors say Allen took of himself inside his Washington, D.C. hotel room roughly 90 minutes before the attack. The images show Allen wearing formal dinner attire underneath loaded weapons strapped to his body: a shoulder holster holding a semi-automatic handgun, a sheathed fixed-blade knife, and a separate bag stuffed with ammunition. Tools recovered from Allen after the incident, including pliers and wire cutters, are also visible on his person in the self-portraits. The photos were timestamped at approximately 8:03 p.m. EST, court records show.

Prosecutors’ timeline lays out the 30-minute window of activity after Allen took the pre-attack photos. During that period, they allege, Allen repeatedly browsed online media outlets to confirm live coverage of the annual dinner and verify that Trump was in attendance at the event. Once he confirmed the former president’s presence, he left his hotel room and walked toward the Washington Hilton ballroom where hundreds of journalists, political figures, and administration officials had gathered. Before approaching the venue’s security checkpoint, prosecutors say Allen discarded a long black overcoat he had used to conceal his pump-action shotgun.

“Shortly thereafter, the defendant rushed the screening checkpoint on the Terrace Level of the Washington Hilton with a raised shotgun,” the memorandum states. Official accounts confirm Allen sprinted through a activated metal detector, holding the shotgun in a two-handed raised firing position as he advanced into the secured event space. A U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the detail was shot during the subsequent confrontation, though their wound was not life-threatening and they have since been reported to be in stable condition.

The court filing also sheds new light on the weeks-long lead-up to the alleged attack. Investigators confirm Allen left his home in Torrance, a Los Angeles suburb, on April 21, traveling cross-country by train via Chicago before arriving in the nation’s capital. During his journey, Allen kept a handwritten note on his cell phone documenting his observations of the landscape, including a line describing “the southwest desert in spring [with] Distant wind turbines looming like snowy mountains across the hazy NM desert”.

In a chilling pre-attack communication sent to his own family shortly before he stormed the dinner, Allen allegedly spelled out his targeting priorities, writing that “Administration officials… are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest”. He added that he “would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary”, according to an earlier affidavit filed in the case.

If convicted on the top charge of attempted assassination of the U.S. president, Allen faces a potential life sentence. Two additional charges—transporting a firearm across state lines to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a violent crime—each carry a maximum 10-year prison sentence. In their motion to deny bail, prosecutors emphasized that Allen’s alleged actions were “premeditated, violent, and calculated to cause death”. They added that no set of release conditions could reasonably guarantee the safety of the public or other community members if Allen were freed from custody ahead of his trial. At the time of reporting, Allen remains in federal custody, with no trial date yet set.