Former FBI Director James Comey spent years using the FBI as a political weapon — and on Sunday, he showed up on NBC‘s “Meet the Press” facing a second federal indictment to explain why everyone else is the problem.
James Comey urges Todd Blanche to ‘bone up’ on legal rules amid indictment: Full interview https://t.co/2HfOyu0ltE pic.twitter.com/WTf7DmDNWP
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 17, 2026
Comey was indicted last month on two counts over an Instagram post featuring seashells arranged to read “86 47,” which prosecutors say was “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States.” He quickly deleted the post after it ignited a firestorm. He declined to discuss the specifics of the case, but had no problem taking a shot at Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Blanche previously told Welker the case was about “a body of evidence” collected over roughly 11 months — not just one post. Comey’s response was to lecture him about talking too much.
“I don’t talk about the case because the federal court rules require you not,” Comey said. “I would urge the acting attorney general to bone up on the rules.”
As for the post itself, he defended it by noting he’s now a private citizen who uses Instagram “the way any awkward, nerdy dad would.” The post was not a picture of brunch. It was “86 47,” slang for getting rid of someone, according to prosecutors, aimed at the 47th president.
Despite facing two indictments from the same system, he insisted he still has “complete faith” in the judicial system, calling it “the only leg” of the three-branch government stool that is “still standing.” He also repeated his public claim of innocence, telling Welker: “I’m not just not guilty, I am innocent, and so let’s go.”
Read More: Comey Faces the Music, Turns Himself in at Federal Courthouse Over Alleged Threat to Donald Trump
Welker pressed him on his decision to reopen the Hillary Clinton email investigation 11 days before the 2016 election, a call that Democrats have never forgiven and Republicans have never forgotten. Comey acknowledged mistakes during his tenure but stood by the big ones. He said he’d do it again.
“But again, we made the decision because it was the least-bad option. Both options sucked, honestly. But this was the one most consistent with the values of the department. So as painful as it is, I’d have to do the same thing again.”
That answer will not satisfy Democrats who still blame him for sinking Clinton, nor Republicans who remember him as the man who handed the Russia probe to Robert Mueller. His answer, as always, was that he did the hard but necessary thing.
On the question of political payback, he was more direct. He declined to comment on the current “shell case” — his words — but had no such hesitation about the prior indictment, which a judge threw out after ruling that appointed U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully placed in her position.
“The president of the United States cannot use the Justice Department to target people because he wants to retaliate against them. We just can’t operate as a republic if that happens.”
That’s a remarkable line from a man whose FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into a sitting president’s campaign based on what his own inspector general later called a flawed and biased process.
He declared the Justice Department “seriously broken at the top” while urging career employees to “hang on” for another two and a half years, until, presumably, a friendlier administration arrives. “We need good people in those roles. America does,” he said.
The interview was classic Comey: wouldn’t discuss the indictment, except to criticize the people bringing it; wouldn’t concede much on 2016, except that the options were bad; wouldn’t express confidence in the current DOJ, except for the employees waiting out the clock.
For a man who insists the courtroom is the proper venue, he still had an awful lot to say on national television.
Editor’s Note: The Trump administration is exposing Barack Obama and his administration’s Russian Collusion Hoax.
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