The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday obtained a second grand jury indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, long a target of President Donald Trump’s anger for overseeing an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted Comey related to a photo he posted on social media of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” Comey took the photo while vacationing in North Carolina last year. The indictment alleges that Comey threatened to harm the president and that he used interstate commerce to transmit the threat when he posted the photo.

An arrest warrant was also issued for Comey. The indictment alleges that a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances” would interpret the seashell photo as a serious expression of intent to harm Trump.

Trump supporters have interpreted the photo as a threat against the president, since “86” is a slang term for removing something and “47” could be seen as a reference to Trump as the 47th president. Comey has said the photo wasn’t intended as a call to violence and deleted the post.

“While this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a Justice Department news conference.

In a video posted online after the indictment, Comey said he was “still innocent” and wasn’t afraid. 

“Well, they’re back,” he says at the start of the video.

“It’s really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be,” Comey said. “The good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values. Keep the faith.”

Trump’s feud with Comey

A federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Comey in September, accusing him of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. The allegations relate to his testimony in 2020 about the FBI’s investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign. The indictment came days before the statute of limitations ran out.

Comey pleaded not guilty before a federal judge dismissed the case in November, finding the prosecutor in the case had been illegally appointed. The judge also dismissed a separate case against Democratic New York Attorney General Letita James.

The new indictment marked another escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to prosecute Comey and other political enemies. Last week, the Justice Department obtained an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has long angered conservatives. 

Hours before the Justice Department announced the indictment, a federal judge in New York ruled that a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by Comey’s daughter, former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, could proceed. Maurene Comey claims she was improperly fired from the Justice Department because of her father or for political reasons.

Blanche takes questions

The new prosecution also comes as Blanche, a personal defense attorney for Trump, leads the Justice Department following the departure of Pam Bondi. Trump has not yet nominated a permanent attorney general.

The Tuesday indictment was signed by Matthew Petracca, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“This is a ridiculous indictment against James Comey. The Department of Justice will lose in court, again,” U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, wrote on social media.

At the news conference, Blanche fielded skeptical questions from reporters about how the case came together and why the criminal case wasn’t brought until nearly a year after the post. He refused to discuss evidence in the case, saying that would be unfair to Comey and prosecutors.

“You are not allowed to threaten the president of the United States of America,” Blanche said. “That’s not my decision, that’s Congress’ decision.”

A grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, which alleges payments the organization made to informants in extremist groups functioned as financial support for them.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC, a civil rights nonprofit based in Montgomery, Alabama, that helped take down some of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the country.

“As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement Tuesday evening that the organization was “outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive.” 

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do,” Fair said. “To be clear, this program saved lives.”

Fair said in a video released earlier on Tuesday that SPLC was the subject of a criminal probe and that he believed it was connected with a now-discontinued paid informant program, which Fair said provided information and intelligence on extremist groups that was passed to law enforcement.

The indictment characterizes those payments, dating back to the 1980s, as funding for leaders and organizers of racist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance.

No individuals were named in the indictment, but Blanche at the news conference, referred to one individual who was paid $270,000 over eight years. In total, according to the indictment, between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight people.

The indictment also pointed to an imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, as well as an alleged member of the online leadership chat group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Additionally, the indictment accuses the organization of funneling money to violent extremist groups by using the informants SPLC recruited.

FBI Director Kash Patel said at the news conference that SPLC tried to hide criminal activity from banks.

“They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that the money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in perpetuation of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud,” Patel said.

The indictment includes  six counts of wire fraud, alleging SPLC defrauded donors; three counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of money laundering.

Fair said earlier on Tuesday that the paid informant program operated “in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system.”

The interim CEO said that SPLC did not “share our use of informants broadly with anyone to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families.”

“And while we no longer work with paid informants, we continue to take their safety seriously,” he said.  

A spokesperson for the organization said Tuesday that the program “predates me and a lot of people here. Most people who were involved are not even with the organization, because it has been a very long time since it has ended.”

Fair accused President Donald Trump and the DOJ of targeting SPLC for political purposes.

“Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people, and any organization like ours that stands in the breach,” Fair said. “We stood in the vanguard then, and we stand in the vanguard today. We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission or the communities we serve.”

The SPLC, founded in 1971, rose to prominence by bringing lawsuits against the Klan and other organizations that forced them to declare bankruptcy. Members of the Klan bombed the organization’s headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 1983. The group has also done work on voting rights, immigration and labor issues.

The group has often been outspoken and critical of Trump, and Republicans and conservatives have made it a target for years, saying it lumps right-wing groups in with extremist organizations. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the SPLC in December.

Updated at 6:37 p.m. with details of indictment, comments from DOJ press conference and reaction from SPLC.