Former FBI director James Comey has been charged with threatening the life of US President Donald Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The indictment stems from an investigation into a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against Trump.
It's the second criminal case the Justice Department has brought against him, who said he assumed the arrangement of shells he saw on a walk, reading "86 47," was a political message, not a call to violence.
Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service in May after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president.
He deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: "I didn't realise some folks associate those numbers with violence" and "I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down."
Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing "exactly what that meant."
"A child knows what that meant," Trump said. "If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear."
Strained ties
The former FBI director was first indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorised inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist.
He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed.
Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush's Republican administration.
But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump to pledge his loyalty to the president.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017.
