Ex-FBI Director James Comey indicted for second time
President Trump has specifically called for Comey to be prosecuted. A judge threw out an earlier indictment in November.
Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for a second time, after a judge dismissed an earlier indictment back in November, according to media reports.
The Justice Department, Comey, and lawyers who previously represented Comey didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The new indictment concerns a social media post by Comey, according to reports from CNN and The New York Times, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
That post depicted an image of seashells reading “8647.” Some supporters of President Donald Trump interpreted the post as a threat, because “86” is a slang term that means “to throw out” or “to get rid of,” according to Merriam-Webster, and Trump is the 47th U.S. president.
Comey later deleted the post and said in a new post that he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and he took the post down because he opposes “violence of any kind.”
Comey was previously prosecuted by the Trump administration for allegedly lying to Congress, but the case was dismissed after a judge determined the prosecutor who brought it was unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department has appealed that ruling.
Both prosecutions have come after Trump specifically called for Comey to be criminally charged in September. Comey served as director of the FBI during the first Trump administration, before Trump fired him in 2017.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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