President Donald Trump’s own allies think the Justice Department’s criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey over some seashells on the beach is a humiliating waste of time.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Tuesday that a grand jury in North Carolina had indicted Comey on two counts of making threats against the president’s life over an Instagram post that Comey shared almost a year ago.
Comey, 65, had come across seashells arranged in the sand to spell out “86 47,” which he photographed and shared with the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
The number 86 is sometimes used as slang for tossing something out or getting rid of it—including in the context of restaurant kitchens—but some MAGA loyalists accused Comey of calling for Trump, who is the 47th president, to be killed.
But the case is so weak that even lawyers close to the president expect it to be dismissed, Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos said on Wednesday during an interview with Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, who agreed that even Trump’s supporters think the charges are bogus.
“Even Trump’s allies are privately calling it embarrassing, or—as one very prominent former Trump DOJ official told me last night—depressing,” Karl said.
“I have spoken to no serious lawyers who think these charges will result in a conviction,” he added. “The near-universal view is that it will be thrown out before it gets to trial.”
Within hours of sharing the photo, Comey deleted the post and apologized for any confusion it had caused.
“It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he wrote on Instagram in May 2025.
The Secret Service interviewed him at the time and concluded he didn’t pose a threat, and now, some DOJ insiders are calling it the worst case they’ve ever seen in their lifetimes, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Karl said the investigation was reopened by former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was fired in part because she failed to successfully prosecute Trump’s perceived enemies, in a last-ditch effort to save her job.
Now, Blanche, who is currently just the acting attorney general and wants to be nominated to fill the role long-term, needs “to prove to President Trump that he will be more aggressive in prosecuting those enemies than Bondi was,” according to Karl.
“And I can tell you this, George, shortly after that indictment was announced, Todd Blanche was at the White House meeting with senior White House officials,” Karl told Stephanopoulos.
Bondi’s DOJ also charged Comey with making a false statement to Congress regarding leaks tied to the Russiagate investigation. That case was dismissed last November after a judge ruled that Trump’s hand-picked prosecutor, former beauty queen Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed.
Comey responded to the latest charges, each carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, on Tuesday in a video posted on his Substack.
“Well, they’re back,” he said. “This time, about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won’t be the end of it. But nothing has changed with me. I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go.”
Comey’s attorney Patrick Fitzgerald told the Daily Beast in a statement, “Mr. Comey vigorously denies the charges contained in the Indictment filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina. We will contest these charges in the courtroom and look forward to vindicating Mr. Comey and the First Amendment.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and DOJ for comment.
