Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked on CBS Mornings on Wednesday if the indictment against former FBI Director James Comey was genuinely “a serious case” or an unserious case “being warped to carry out a political agenda.”

During an interview with Blanche about the Department of Justice’s indictment of Comey for allegedly threatening President Donald Trump on Instagram, CBS News’s chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett questioned:

Mr. Blanche, you lived this history much more than I did, but I’m gonna paraphrase what you said about the hush money case that was brought in New York. You said at the time supposedly serious people were bringing unserious charges and warping the language and the facts and the law because there was a political imperative beyond that. Are you telling the American people this morning that this is a serious case and this is a serious set of charges and that laws and facts are not being warped to carry out a political agenda?

Blanche shot back, “Look at the indictment! That’s not for me to decide, that’s for the American people to decide, and if you think– if anybody in this country thinks, especially given what happened over the past couple years with respect to President Trump, that it is okay for anybody to threaten the president of the United States, that it is okay to threaten the president of the United States and then have the media or others say, ‘Well, that’s not serious,’ then we have a bigger problem than I even imagined in this country.”

“Of course it’s serious when you threaten the president of the United States, and anybody that tries to put forward some narrative that this is just about seashells or something to the contrary is missing the point,” the attorney general concluded. “You cannot threaten the president of the United States. That’s not my decision, that’s Congress’ decision in a law that they passed, and so yes, of course this is a serious case.”

Comey was charged with threatening the life of the president this week over an Instagram photo he posted nearly one year ago.

In the May 2025 Instagram post, Comey showed off a collection of seashells on a beach arranged to read, “86 47.”

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “86” is slang for “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to refuse service to.” However, the number has also been used as a code for “to kill” or “execute.”

“While President Trump is currently on an international trip to the Middle East, the former FBI Director puts out what can clearly be interpreted as ‘a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States — a message etched in the sand,” wrote White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich in a statement following the incident. “This is deeply concerning to all of us and is being taken seriously.”

Watch above via CBS News.

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