The Department of Justice has indicted former FBI director James Comey for posting a picture of seashells on Instagram. Not for what those shells were arranged to depict, mind you. For the actual post itself. A photograph of shells, now transformed through prosecutorial creativity into evidence of a federal crime.
This is where we are. This is what passes for governance in 2025.
The Restaurant Slang That Started It All
To understand how absurd this has become, you need to know what “86” means. It’s old restaurant slang, the kind of thing line cooks have shouted for decades when the kitchen runs out of something. “86 the chicken fried steak!” means it’s gone. Finished. Not on the menu anymore. The term also carries secondary meanings in some slang dictionaries, including referring to people a restaurant refuses to serve, and in certain contexts, murder.
Comey posted to Instagram in 2025 an image of shells arranged into two numbers: “86 47.” Trump is the 47th president. The implication, prosecutors argue, is crystal clear.
It’s a threat to kill the president, made out of seashells.
The Real History Behind This
This isn’t about shells or slang codes. This is about grudges with real teeth. Trump has harbored a vendetta against Comey since the FBI director’s investigation into Trump’s possible Russian ties. Firing him in 2017 apparently wasn’t enough. In 2025, the administration fired Comey’s daughter from her job as a prosecutor. And now, through the Department of Justice, they’re coming for Comey himself.
Trump has been explicit about his desire to weaponize federal power against his perceived enemies. Federal officials in his second term have shown a willingness to comply. But incompetence has been their saving grace, at least once. A previous Comey indictment in Virginia got tossed so spectacularly that Trump’s interim US attorney for the state was booted out too. This North Carolina indictment, on completely new charges, appears to be round two.
Why This Matters Beyond One Man
The indictment itself is thin to the point of transparency. It claims Comey “knowingly and willfully” made a threat by posting a photograph that “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President.” There are no additional details. No evidence of actual harm plotted. No specifics about how shells arranged in a pattern constitute a direct and credible threat. According to reporting, legal analysts at Above the Law called today’s move a “new low point for DOJ integrity.”
What’s terrifying here isn’t the charge against Comey. It’s the precedent being set. The federal government is now willing to criminalize ambiguous social media posts if the sitting president dislikes them. According to the underlying reporting, the administration has already shown it will come after broadcast licenses over jokes that displease Trump. Your technology and your speech are apparently both fair game.
The irony is suffocating. Trump has positioned himself as a defender against government “censorship” of American citizens. Yet his DOJ is prosecuting a former official for what amounts to a cryptic Instagram post that requires familiarity with restaurant slang and political context to decode as a threat. A photograph of shells.
Meanwhile, Trump himself recently warned Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” in a social media post so unhinged that even the Pope felt compelled to intervene. That wasn’t charged as a crime.
What Comes Next
This case will almost certainly collapse, likely in embarrassing fashion given what happened in Virginia. But the collapse isn’t really the point anymore. The point is that the machinery exists now. The DOJ, run by one of Trump’s personal lawyers, has shown it will process whatever charge the administration wants against whoever the administration wants. The courts might eventually say no. But not before the indictment itself becomes a weapon, a tool of harassment, a way to tie up resources and dominate the news cycle.
For Comey, it’s a persecution dressed up as prosecutorial duty. For the rest of us, it’s a preview of what selective prosecution looks like when government power combines with personal vengeance and no institutional guardrails.
The shells are just shells. But the willingness to treat them as evidence of a crime is what should keep you awake.
