The Justice Department is pushing back against former FBI Director James Comey’s bid to dismiss charges that he threatened to kill President Donald Trump with a cryptic Instagram post, citing Comey’s own fiction to make its case.
In a late Tuesday filing in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, prosecutors from U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle’s office argued that Comey’s seashell photo — which showed the numbers “86 47” arranged on a North Carolina beach — was a coded message to his followers to “kill” or “get rid of” the president, a euphemism for murder, according to CNBC.
The government’s filing leaned on a parallel from Comey’s novel “FDR Drive,” pointing to a right-wing podcaster in the book who sends encrypted signals to supporters to eliminate an enemy. “On May 15, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey, through the wonder of the internet, posted a coded message to his followers meaning ‘kill’ or ‘get rid of’ (a euphemism for ‘kill’) President Trump,” the filing said.
Comey’s legal team had moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing the case is vindictive and selective. They contend “86” is a common restaurant term for removing an item from the menu and that “47” simply refers to Trump as the 47th president. The phrase “86 47,” they say, is a well-known political slogan expressing opposition rather than violence.
But prosecutors countered that there is “no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump.'” They noted Comey has admitted “47” referred to Trump and cited Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, which lists “86” as slang for “to throw out, get rid of,” and, by the 1970s, “to kill, to murder.”
The filing also included an affidavit from Boyle asserting that “no one ordered, directed or pressured” him to bring the case against Comey.
Comey’s defense previously highlighted a May 2026 FBI probe — launched at Boyle’s personal direction — that used open-source queries and AI tools like Google AI and ChatGPT to research the term “86.” The results, according to the defense, were mixed: one search noted that many career law enforcement officials had never heard “86” used for murder in over 35 years of duty, while another indicated that Merriam-Webster does not officially list a violent definition for the term due to its “relatively recent” and limited use compared with its hospitality meaning.
The former FBI director, a frequent critic of Trump who was fired by the president in 2017, has also faced separate legal trouble. In September 2025, a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted him on charges of lying during Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in 2020. A judge dismissed that case in November, ruling that Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer for Trump who had been appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was unlawfully appointed and therefore lacked authority to secure the indictment. Comey has denied wrongdoing in that matter.
The latest filing is one of several submitted in response to Comey’s motion to dismiss the current indictment, which centers on the Instagram post. The court will now weigh whether the seashell photo constitutes a genuine threat or protected political speech.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/comey-trump-8647-seashells-threat-doj.html
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