Former FBI Director and author James Comey speaks at Barnes & Noble Upper West Side in New York City on May 19, 2025.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Justice Department has urged a federal judge not to dismiss criminal charges against a former FBI director who allegedly threatened to kill President Donald Trump by posting an Instagram photo of seashells fashioned into the numbers “86 47” on a North Carolina beach, citing a James Comey novel.
In new court filings late Tuesday night, prosecutors suggested that Mr. Comey, like the right-wing podcaster featured in the fictional book “FDR Drive,” sent encrypted messages to his followers suggesting he would kill his enemies.
“On May 15, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey posted a coded message to his followers that meant to ‘kill’ or ‘eliminate’ (a euphemism for ‘kill’) President Trump through the wonders of the Internet,” according to a filing by the office of U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
The filing was one of several filed Tuesday by Comey’s lawyers seeking dismissal of the charges against him because of vindictive and selective prosecution. Comey has long been a critic of Trump and has been a target of the president’s rhetoric, leading to his firing as FBI director in 2017.
Mr. Comey’s lawyer said he did not intend to threaten Mr. Trump with the shell post, noting that the word “86” is used in restaurants by staff to indicate that a menu item is no longer available. Trump is the 47th President of the United States.
But in a new filing, Boyle’s office said there is “no significant dispute that an objective observer of Comey’s post could interpret it to mean ‘kill President Trump.'”
“Mr. Comey acknowledged that ’47’ referred to President Trump,” the filing states. “And the Cassell Slang Dictionary (2nd edition) defines the meaning of ’86’ as: to throw away, to remove (1940s), (1970) to kill, to murder judicially execute, (1980) to terminate, to leave or be ready to take out an item, or to be exhausted.”
In an affidavit filed Tuesday night, Boyle said “no one ordered, directed or pressured” him to indict Comey.
Mr. Comey’s lawyers said in a late July filing that the phrase “86 47” is “a well-known political slogan expressing opposition to the president.”
“No reasonable observer would understand that the words ’86 47′ imply violence, much less that Mr. Comey would personally threaten violence against the President,” the defense motion to dismiss states.
Comey’s filing also notes that in May 2026, at the personal direction of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, “the FBI conducted open source queries and artificial intelligence searches for the term ’86,’ including both Google AI and ChatGPT.”
“The search yielded mixed results, including the following: “Many career law enforcement officers, including former FBI agents, have publicly disputed this, saying they had never heard the “86” used in a murder in their 35-plus years of service, believing it was purely a restaurant and bar removal item.” ”
“Another search returned documents indicating that ’86’ is not officially listed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a violent meaning, because the word is relatively recent and less widely used than its hospitable meaning.”
Comey was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia in September 2025 for allegedly lying during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, but he has denied any wrongdoing.
A judge dismissed the first case in November, ruling that Trump’s former personal attorney Lindsey Harrigan was illegally appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and therefore lacked the authority to obtain an indictment against Comey.
