The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a new indictment against former FBI director James Comey for the dissemination on social media of a controversial photograph that allies of President Donald Trump linked to an alleged threat of wanting to "get rid of" the Republican leader.
The image, which Comey later deleted, showed several seashells arranged in a way that formed the numbers 86 and 47. The first is used in certain urban environments as slang to indicate that something is discarded or eliminated, while the second would allude to Trump's current term as the 47th president of the United States.
In a later social media post, in May, the former FBI official explained that he interpreted the photograph as a "political message" and not as an allusion to violence, underscoring that he does not support the commission or incitement of violent acts.
The then Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, made public that the Secret Service would open an investigation, considering that the message could be interpreted as incitement to assassination against Trump. Subsequently, lawyers from the Department of Justice filed the formal charges against Comey in the eastern district of North Carolina, as reported by CNN.
This new case comes after Comey, dismissed by Donald Trump during his first term, was prosecuted in September of last year for alleged false testimony and obstruction of Congress. Those charges were finally dismissed when the appointment of Lindsey Halligan -- former lawyer for the president -- as federal prosecutor for the eastern district of Virginia, responsible for pursuing that accusation, was declared illegal.
That procedure had its origin in a Comey appearance before Congress in 2020, in which he allegedly lied by denying any involvement in the leak of information about the alleged ties between Trump and the Government of Russia.