DOJ Invokes Comey Novel to Fight Dismissal of '86 47' Shell Threat Case

Federal prosecutors are pushing back against efforts to dismiss a criminal case tied to a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, arguing that a photograph of seashells arranged to read "86 47" constituted a credible threat against President Donald Trump. The Department of Justice filed arguments urging the presiding judge to let the case proceed, contending the post's meaning was unmistakable to any reasonable observer.

In their filing, prosecutors leaned on Comey's own published novel to bolster their interpretation of the post, arguing the former director's own creative work helped establish context for the threatening language. "There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey's post could read it to mean 'Kill President Trump,'" prosecutors wrote, framing the case around a widely understood slang term in which '86' signals elimination and '47' refers to the 47th president.

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The DOJ's decision to anchor its argument in Comey's literary record is a notable legal strategy, essentially turning the defendant's own public output into evidence of intent. Prosecutors appear to be preempting any claim that the phrase was ambiguous or innocuous by pointing to the author's demonstrated familiarity with language and communication — a move that could carry weight with the court as it weighs whether the case survives a motion to dismiss.

The case sits at the intersection of First Amendment protections and federal statutes prohibiting threats against the president, a tension courts have long grappled with. Whether the post rises to the legal threshold of a true threat — not merely offensive or provocative speech — will likely determine the outcome. The judge has yet to rule on the dismissal motion.

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