Former FBI Director James Comey has been charged with threateningthe life of US President Donald Trump, a formal accusation that stems from an imagehebriefly shared on social media.

The image posted on Instagram last year showed seashells forming the numbers “86 47”. “Eighty-six” is a slang term used to mean “eject” or “remove”.

Comey has insisted he did not know what the numbers on the image meant, but Trump and other administration officials have said the post was a threat against the 47th president.

Responding to the charges on Tuesday, Comey said: “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”

At a press conference to announce the indictment, FBI Director Kash Patel said that as the former director of the agency, Comey “knew full well the attention and consequences of making such a post”.

“James Comey disgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump’s life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see,” Kash Patel said on Tuesday.

Comey was fired by Trump during his first term, after the former FBI director opened an investigation into Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly called for his prosecution – Tuesday’s charges are the administration’s second attempt to do so.

“Well, they’re back. This time about a picture of sea shells on a North Carolina beach a year ago. And this won’t be the end of it, but nothing has changed with me,” Comey said in a statement.

Comey faces charges of making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, according to court documents. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

The criminal charges were filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the same region where the shells were reportedly found.

“Threatening the life of the President of the United States is a grave violation of our nation’s laws,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “The grand jury returned an indictment alleging James Comey did just that.”

US Secret Service agents interviewed Comey last May about the seashell photo.

Comey deleted the Instagram post, saying in a follow-up that he “assumed [the sea shells] were a political message”.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence,” he added. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Trump, who has long criticised Comey, said of the post that “a child knows what that meant”.

Some legal experts said the indictment appeared insubstantial and raised new questions about the DOJ’s efforts to target Trump’s perceived political opponents.

“It’s very thin,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law expert at the UNC School of Law.

Comey’s social media post will likely be viewed by courts as free speech that is protected by the first amendment, Gerhardt added.

Jimmy Gurulé, a former federal prosecutor and former assistant US Attorney General appointed by President George W Bush, said the new indictment was “an embarrassment to the American criminal justice system”.

“The DOJ will not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that James Comey had the intent to threaten or harm President Trump,” Gurulé, now a Notre Dame Law School professor, said in a statement to the BBC. “The indictment is a transparent attempt to intimidate one of the President’s perceived political enemies.”

This is the second time the justice department has brought charges against Comey.

Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury in late September on charges that he lied to Congress during testimony in September 2020 and obstructed a congressional proceeding.

The charges came days after Trump called on the country’s top law enforcement official to more aggressively investigate his political adversaries, including Comey.

Comey pleaded not guiltyduring a brief court appearance in October before the case was dismissed in November.

US District Judge Cameron Currie tossed the indictment against Comey because of prosecutor Lindsey Halligan’s “invalid” appointment as US attorney.

Halligan, the prosecutor in eastern Virginia who secured the indictments, was not authorised to present the charges to the grand jury, the judge said.Halligan is a former White House aide who had never prosecuted a case before.

The judge, however, left the door open for the government to try again.

Earlier on Tuesday, a separate judge ruled that former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey – James Comey’s daughter – can move forward with her case challenging her firing by the Trump administration.

It is a very big deal that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced its abrupt exit from Opec, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The Emiratis were members even before they became a nation state in 1971.

Opec is the organisation of mainly Gulf oil exporters, which for many decades controlled the price of crude oil by decreasing or increasing production and allocating quotas across its membership. It had a vital role in 1970s oil crises, which in turn transformed global energy policy.

While Opec production is dominated by Saudi Arabia, the UAE had the second highest spare production capacity. In other words, it was the second most important swing producer, capable of increasing production to help ease prices.

Indeed it is precisely this that led to long-term reconsiderations of the UAE’s position. Put simply, the UAE wanted to use the considerable capacity it has invested in.

Opec quotas limited its production to 3-3.5 million barrels per day. Opec membership sacrifices, in terms of lost revenues, were being made disproportionately by the UAE.

However, the timing of this move hints at consequences from the Iran war. The pressure cooker in the Gulf has impacted the UAE’s relationship with Iran and may affect its already strained relationship with Saudi Arabia.

As for Opec, this is a big blow at a time when significant questions are being asked about its long-term coherence.

It’s not just that the UAE, when it can get its oil fully back on the market by sea or pipeline, is likely to target 5 million barrels per day production. Saudi Arabia might respond with an oil price war that the UAE’s more diversified economy could withstand, but other poorer Opec members might not.

Much depends on the Saudi response.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has defended a joke in which he called Melania Trump an “expectant widow” just days before a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

The first lady described a Kimmel sketch which aired last Thursday as “hateful and violent”, and the White House urged his network, ABC, to fire the comedian.

Three days later, a gunman opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in Washington DC, which Donald Trump attended with Melania. Authorities have said the gunman’s attack may have targeted members of the Trump administration.

Kimmel said the original joke was a “light roast” about the 23-year age difference between the president and his wife.

“Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said during the Thursday night sketch.

Delivering his first monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the shooting, the comedian said the joke was “a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s [President Trump] almost 80 and she’s younger than I am”.

“It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination and they know that, I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular,” he added.

“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject, I think a great place to start to dial that back is having a conversation with your husband about it.”

On Monday, Melania wrote in a post on X that “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate”.

“His monologue about my family isn’t comedy – his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America… How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”

President Trump also said he appreciated that so many people were “incensed by Kimmel’s” remarks, claiming they were a “call to violence”, in a post on Truth Social on Monday afternoon.

“[T]his is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” he added.

The BBC has contacted ABC for comment.

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Kimmel was taken off air last September after he made comments about the shooting of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

In a monologue, Kimmel said the “Maga gang” – a reference to Trump’s followers – was trying to “score political points” from the murder of Kirk. His show was reinstated a week later.

After returning to the show, Kimmel said he accepted that some people felt his remarks about Kirk’s death had been “ill-timed or unclear or maybe both”, adding: “I get why you’re upset.”

In the latest incident, a resurfaced clip of Kimmel’s Thursday joke sparked backlash on social media after the shooting, with critics accusing the comedian of encouraging political violence. Several conservative social media users called for Kimmel to be taken off air.

Trump and Melania were evacuated unharmed from the gala dinner on Saturday night after a gunman opened fire near a security checkpoint at the event, held at the Washington Hilton.

Trump told reporters that the dinner was “a rather traumatic experience” for his wife.

The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, was tackled by agents near a staircase leading down to a ballroom where the dinner was taking place, with hundreds of journalists, officials and public figures attending.

Allen appeared in court on Monday where he was charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

He was also charged with weapon offences relating to the incident. He did not enter a plea.

A California man has been charged with attempting to assassinate US President Donald Trump in an incident that has sparked a White House security review.

Cole Tomas Allen, 31, was also charged with two firearms offences when he appeared in court in Washington DC on Monday. He did not enter a plea.

He was carrying a semi-automatic handgun, a pump-action shotgun and three knives as he charged past a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, say prosecutors.

A Secret Service agent was shot but not seriously wounded during the attack at a hotel. The accused faces life in prison if found guilty.

Dressed in a blue jumpsuit with a nametag, the suspect appeared calm at Monday’s court appearance in the nation’s capital.

He was softly spoken as he answered almost every question from the judge with either “yes, your honour” or “no, your honour”.

He stated his age and said he had a master’s degree.

Three US marshals stood behind him, and one was at his side, while the federal prosecutor handling the case, US Attorney for Washington Jeanine Pirro, looked on.

During Saturday night’s incident, Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, cabinet members and other White House officials were rushed from the Washington Hilton hotel ballroom after gunfire rang out.

The suspect allegedly rushed through a security checkpoint one floor above the basement venue.

“One Secret Service officer was shot in the chest, but was wearing a ballistic vest that worked,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a news conference on Monday.

“This heroic officer who was hit fired five times at Allen, who was not shot but fell to the ground and was promptly arrested.”

Blanche said the suspect is believed to have discharged his shotgun at least once.

It is not clear whether the Secret Service agent was shot by the suspect, or was caught in crossfire from other law enforcement. The agent has been released from the hospital.

Attempting to assassinate the president carries a potential life sentence.

The other charges – transportation of a firearm between states to commit a felony and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence – both have maximum sentences of 10 years. The suspect is due to appear in court again on Thursday.

The court heard that the accused crossed multiple state lines in order to try to kill Trump.

The suspect left his home in the city of Torrance in the Los Angeles area on 21 April, travelling by train to Chicago, said officials.

On 24 April, he left Chicago, and arrived in Washington where he checked into the Hilton on the eve of the gala.

The suspect studied at the prestigious California Institute of Technology, and worshipped at the Pasadena United Reformed Church in the Los Angeles area.

Federal campaign finance records show he donated $25 to a Democratic Party political action committee in support of Kamala Harris for president in 2024.

According to an affidavit, the accused sent an email to his family shortly before the attack that said, “Administration officials… are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest”.

“I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary,” he allegedly added.

He was remanded in custody and prosecutors said more charges could be filed.

The accused has not been co-operating with investigators, law enforcement sources told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

As US investigators look into the third alleged assassination attempt against Trump, security officials are reviewing the president’s protection protocols.

Many have questioned whether the security perimeter at the Washington Hilton was strong enough, why attendees were not asked to show ID at the event, and why the president, vice-president and others in the line of succession were all gathered in one place.

In Monday’s news conference, the acting attorney general maintained that “law enforcement did not fail” in its job to protect the event.

He noted that the gunman was one floor away, “with hundreds of federal agents between him and the President of the United States”.

The Washington Hilton, where John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan 45 years ago, said it had followed security instructions from the Secret Service.

A senior White House official told the BBC that Trump was “standing by” the leadership of the Secret Service.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will convene a meeting this week to “discuss protocol and practices for major events”, the official also said.

Trump has offered assurances that King Charles III will “be very safe” during his four-day state visit to the US, which began on Monday at the White House.

Additional reporting from Bernd Debusmann Jr, at the White House

For many in the ballroom at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night, the scene was painfully familiar. Shots fired, confusion and panic, and a sense that the normal order of things had been violently interrupted.

Erika Kirk, whose husband, the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed last September, was in tears. Congressman Steve Scalise, majority leader in the House of Representatives who suffered life-threatening injuries in a shooting at a baseball practice with Republican teammates in 2017, was escorted out by security.

So was Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who lost his father and uncle to assassin’s bullets.

Many journalists in attendance had been at the 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where an assailant opened fire on Donald Trump, grazing his ear, before being killed by a Secret Service sniper.

In modern America, it seems, political violence has become an ever-present storm, that can strike anywhere, at any moment.

Saturday night was the third time that Trump has been directly targeted – after the Butler attack and another attempt in 2024 at his Palm Beach golf resort. In a separate incident, the Secret Service killed an armed man trying to enter Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, although the president was not in Florida at the time.

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These incidents have become frequent enough that there is almost a routine to them.

Trump, reflective, calls for unity and a cooling of political rhetoric. News coverage speculates about a “new tone” from the president. Ultimately, partisan divisions reassert themselves – often with Trump leading the way.

That cycle is in overdrive this week.

On Saturday night, Trump called for unity.

“His many detractors should grant that his comments late Saturday at a White House press briefing hit the right notes of gratitude and comity,” a Wall Street Journal editorial observed.

On Sunday evening, in a sit-down with CBS’ 60 Minutes programme, Trump blamed Democrats for creating an atmosphere that encouraged the shooting, then derided interviewer Norah O’Donnell as “a disgrace” and “horrible” after she asked about the manifesto written by the alleged assailant.

The contours of the policy goals for Trump and his Republican allies also have quickly come into view. Some on the left, fuelled by concerns about a crackdown on free speech or Democratic activism, circulated unfounded conspiracy theories that the attack was a means of boosting the president’s standing.

But Trump’s response since the shooting has focused largely on removing obstacles to constructing a massive ballroom at the White House where the mansion’s east wing once stood.

On Sunday, Trump posted on social media that Saturday’s incident was “exactly the reason” he wants the ballroom.

In a letter to the historic preservation group that filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the ballroom, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said the structure would ensure the president’s “safety and security”.

“Your lawsuit puts the lives of the president, his family and his staff at grave risk,” he wrote.

Several Republicans in Congress promised to introduce legislation explicitly authorising the ballroom.

“The ballroom will be a solution for this,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, referring to the correspondents’ dinner, said in a Monday interview on Fox News. “It’ll be a safe environment to do events like that.”

It’s unclear if the White House Correspondents’ Association, which organises the fundraising dinner, would want the president – traditionally an invited guest – to host the annual event. And even with a fortified ballroom at their disposal, presidents typically travel around America for speeches, fundraising events and other public appearances.

A ballroom by itself will not fully address safety concerns raised by Saturday’s incident. Those concerns include how a man was able to bring weapons into a building hosting a president and top government officials, whether the security perimeter set out by the US Secret Service was sufficient, and whether guests in other parts of the hotel should have been screened.

According to a senior administration official, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is convening with Secret Service officials early this week to “discuss protocol and practices for major events” involving the president – including US 250th centennial celebrations this summer.

After the Butler shooting at a fairground near Pittsburgh, Trump drastically curtailed his outdoor rallies. Since becoming president, he has preferred appearances at secure military bases, and speeches and roundtables in smaller venues. Larger public appearances have moved to indoor arenas, where it is easier for the Secret Service to screen attendees.

With the midterm elections looming, however, Trump will be pressed to hit the campaign trail to encourage his supporters, who often stay home when he is not on the ballot, to turn out to vote.

A bunker mentality may make for a safer president. But it could come at a political price.