Fox News legal analyst Andy McCarthy wrote a scathing takedown of the Department of Justice after a grand jury indicted former FBI Director James Comey.

Comey was charged in the Eastern District of North Carolina over an Instagram post he made in May 2025, which he later deleted after conservative uproar. The post showed an image of seashells on a beach arranged to read “86 47.” The former FBI director wrote, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

President Donald Trump is the 47th president, and “86” is slang, typically meaning to refuse service to someone or to remove a person from an establishment. Conservatives insisted the “86” in this case was an explicit threat to kill the president. Comey said at the time that it was “crazy” to think his post was a threat.

Writing in the National Review on Tuesday, McCarthy shredded the indictment, which he said was more absurd than last year’s, in which Comey was charged with lying to, and obstructing Congress back in 2020. A judge tossed that case.

“If it’s possible, the Trump Justice Department’s new indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is even more absurd than the previous indictment,” McCarthy wrote. “That one failed to state a crime. This one fabricates a crime.”

McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, went on to say the DOJ is “moronically” insisting that Comey’s “86 47” post was a threat to assassinate Trump.

McCarthy continued:

After uproar generated by the administration, Comey took down the post and publicly asserted that he opposes violence and meant no such suggestion. He also voluntarily submitted to interviews with the Secret Service — which proceeded to drop what should never have been a criminal investigation. There was not a threat of violence against the president, much less an unambiguous call for his assassination. Nor would it be remotely possible, on the known evidence, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey intended violence.

What Comey did, therefore, does not come close to a threat to kill or harm the president (criminalized by Section 871 of the federal penal code), much less to solicitation of a violent crime (i.e., incitement, under Section 373). This farce, then, is nothing more than a continuation of Trump’s lawfare campaign against a political enemy. It is inconceivable that Comey could be convicted of a crime in these circumstances, but the president’s minions are putting him through the anxiety, expense, and stigma of the judicial process. This includes acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is under pressure to prosecute Trump’s enemies and hopes to have the “acting” designation removed from his title.

He added that the DOJ is engaging in an abuse of power that “shreds its credibility with the courts and undermines the integrity of all its work.”

Over on CNN, legal analyst Elie Honig echoed that analysis.

“And I think if you look at this communication, these seashells, it’s just way too ambiguous,” Honig said. “You have to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. And I don’t see any realistic way prosecutors are gonna be able to do that here.”

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