Former FBI Director James Comey surrenders to federal authorities after indictment

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey has surrendered himself to federal authorities after he was indicted by the Trump administration on charges of making a threat against the president on social media, CNN reports. 

Comey was already expected in federal court in Virginia on Wednesday, kick-starting a criminal case against him that legal experts say presents significant hurdles for the prosecution and will likely be a challenge for the Justice Department to win.

Comey was indicted Tuesday in North Carolina on charges alleging that he made threats against President Donald Trump in a post he shared on social media last year of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” 

The Justice Department alleges those numbers amounted to a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Comey has said he assumed the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence against the Republican president, and removed the post as soon as he saw some people were interpreting it that way.

The indictment is the second against Comey, a longtime adversary of Trump dating back to his time as FBI director, over the past year. 

The first one, on unrelated false-statement and obstruction charges, was tossed out by a judge last year. 

Now prosecutors pursuing the threats case face their own challenge of proving that Comey intended to communicate a true threat or at least recklessly discounted the possibility that the statement could be understood as a threat.

The indictment accuses Comey of acting “knowingly and willfully,” but its sparse language offers no support for that assertion. 

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to elaborate at a news conference on what evidence of intent the government has. But broad First Amendment protections for free speech, Supreme Court precedent and Comey’s public statements indicating that he did not intend to convey a threat will likely impose a tall burden for the government.