Former FBI Director James Comey was released on April 29 after his court appearance over an alleged threat against President Donald Trump.
The judge ordered that Comey be released and didn’t list any special conditions for his release.
Patrick Fitzgerald, Comey’s attorney, told The Epoch Times that he believes the case is a vindictive prosecution and that Comey is being punished for exercising his First Amendment rights.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said on April 29 that Trump didn’t order the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file more charges against Comey.
“Of course not, absolutely, positively not,” Blanche told “CBS Mornings” when he asked whether the president directed him to pursue new charges against Comey.
“This is something that has been investigated for nearly a year now, and the results of that investigation is that a grand jury returned an indictment.”
Federal prosecutors charged Comey with two felony counts related to an alleged threat against the president, claiming that he knowingly posted an image on Instagram on May 15, 2025, featuring “8647,” which authorities say a reasonable person would interpret as a serious expression of intent to harm the president.
They also allege that Comey transmitted the message across state lines while consciously disregarding the risk that it would be viewed as a threat of violence toward another person.
Comey denied that he was calling for the assassination of Trump in his Instagram post that included an image of seashells arranged to form the numbers “8647.” He later deleted the post.
In common usage, to 86 is to eject, remove, or dismiss, a meaning traced to restaurant jargon and reflected in Merriam-Webster. Some dictionaries, including Collins Dictionary, also list a more severe interpretation in which the term can refer to killing or carrying out an execution. The number 47, meanwhile, can be read as a reference to President Donald Trump, who is serving as the nation’s 47th president.
A previous federal indictment against Comey accused him of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding based on his 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The charges were brought in the Eastern District of Virginia after a grand jury returned a two-count indictment presented by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan.
Judge Cameron McGowan Currie of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina dismissed that indictment, ruling that Halligan had been improperly appointed under federal law and the Constitution. The White House said it would appeal the judge’s decision, but the period defined by the statute of limitations for that charge has passed.