WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has cited a legal thriller written by James Comey as evidence the former FBI director knew his social media post that featured the numbers “86 47” would be interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump.
U.S. prosecutors, in court filings published late on Tuesday, said Comey’s novel, in which a right-wing podcaster uses coded language to encourage his followers to target political opponents, has parallels with Comey’s 15-month-old post that depicted seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers “86 47.”
“Just days before releasing a book about a charismatic public figure who publicly conveys messages instructing his followers to ‘get rid of’ his political enemies … Comey posted a message that many observers, including federal and local law enforcement officers, reasonably interpreted to mean ‘kill President Trump,’” prosecutors wrote in the court filings.
Trump’s Justice Department made that claim as it urged a judge to reject Comey’s attempts to have the case thrown out as vindictive prosecution and a violation of his free-speech rights.
Comey, who was fired by Trump as FBI director in 2017, has denied wrongdoing. He is charged with threatening the U.S. president and transmitting a threatening communication. His lawyers have argued the case was brought as retribution for Comey’s criticism of Trump, and that the post did not meet the legal threshold of a threat of violence.
SEASHELLS AND SLANG ON INSTAGRAM
Comey’s May 2025 Instagram post combined the slang term “86,” meaning to remove or expel, with a reference to Trump as the 47th U.S. president. The phrase has been used by others as an anti-Trump protest slogan.
Comey has said he saw the shell formation while on a walk on a North Carolina beach with his wife and interpreted it as a clever political statement. He deleted the post after it generated controversy, saying he did not know the numbers could be associated with violence.
Comey’s defense lawyers have produced evidence that the FBI tried unsuccessfully to show that Comey was aware of a violent interpretation of “86” from his work prosecuting mob figures in New York.
Federal prosecutors have also implied that Comey sought to use the incident to drum up publicity for the novel “FDR Drive,” which was published in May 2025. They referenced a text that he reportedly sent to his agent saying attention from the incident was “not my intention, but I’ll be OK if it sells books.”
The novel tells the story of a federal prosecutor who seeks to build a case against the right-wing media personality accused of inspiring violent acts. It is one of several legal thrillers Comey has written.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Matthew Lewis)
