DOJ cites Comey's novel in urging judge not to toss '86 47' seashells threat to Trump case

The Department of Justice cited a novel written by James Comey as it urged a federal judge not to dismiss criminal charges against the former FBI director for allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump by posting an Instagram photo of seashells on a North Carolina beach forming the numbers "86 47."

Prosecutors in a new court filing late Tuesday night suggested that Comey, like a right-wing podcaster featured in his fictional book "FDR Drive," sent coded messages to his followers suggesting they kill an enemy of his.

"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 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina by U.S. Attorney W. Ellis Boyle's office says.

The filing was one of several Tuesday in response to a filing by Comey's lawyers seeking to dismiss the indictment against him on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution. Comey is a longtime critic of Trump and a verbal target of the president, who fired him as FBI director in 2017.

Comey's attorneys say he did not mean to threaten Trump with the seashells post, noting that the term "86" is used in restaurants by staff to indicate a menu item is no longer available. Trump is the 47th president of the United States.

But Boyle's office, in its new filing, says, "There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey's post could read it to mean 'Kill President Trump.'"

"Comey has admitted that the '47' referred to President Trump," the filing says. "And Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (2nd edition) defines '86' to mean: to throw out, get rid of (1940's), (1970) to kill, to murder to execute judicially, (1980) to be finished, ready to leave or out of an item or be exhausted."

In an affidavit filed on Tuesday night, Boyle said that "no one ordered, directed or pressured" him to indict Comey.

Comey's lawyers, in their own filing in late July, said that the phrase "86 47" is a "well-known political slogan that expresses opposition to the president."

"No reasonable observer would understand the phrase '86 47′ to connote violence at all — let alone to threaten that Mr. Comey personally would commit violence against the President," the defense motion to dismiss says.

Comey's filing also noted that in May 2026, at the personal direction of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, "the FBI conducted both open-source queries and artificial intelligence searches — namely, on Google AI and ChatGPT — about the term '86.'"

"The search yielded varying results, including one that stated: 'Many career law enforcement officials, including former FBI agents, have publicly disputed this, stating they never heard "86" being used for murder in 35 + years of duty, considering it purely a restaurant or bar item for removal."

"Another search returned a document indicating that the Merriam-Webster dictionary does not officially enter a violent meaning for '86' because "it is relatively recent and lacks widespread use compared to its hospitality meanings."

Comey was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia in September 2025 on charges related to allegedly lying during testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020. He denied any wrongdoing.

A judge dismissed that first case in November after ruling that Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer for Trump, was unlawfully appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and as a result did not have authority to obtain the indictment against Comey.