James Comey was indicted in April 2026 by a North Carolina grand jury on charges of threatening to kill President Donald Trump through a social media post featuring seashells arranged as "8647." The number '86' is interpreted by prosecutors as a coded message meaning "kill" or "get rid of," while '47' refers to Trump as the 47th US president [1, 2, 3].
Comey posted the Instagram photo while vacationing on a North Carolina beach in May 2025 and deleted it after public backlash [1, 2, 3]. His lawyers argue the phrase "86 47" is protected speech without violent intent, noting that "86" commonly means "to eject" or "get rid of" without connotation of violence. They said, "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." They added that the indictment's claim of a "true threat" is contradicted by dictionaries, context, precedent, and common sense [1].
The Department of Justice rejected claims of vindictive or selective prosecution and said the post qualifies as a "true threat" that an objective viewer could understand as ordering or threatening Trump's death. DOJ prosecutors wrote, "There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump.’" They also linked Comey’s post to promotion of his forthcoming novel "FDR Drive," which allegedly features coded threats and incitement to violence [1, 2, 3].
Text messages introduced in court show Comey's wife sent him a definition of "86" shortly before the post, writing that it meant "to get rid of or refuse service," highlighting disputes over the post's meaning [3]. Comey responded to public attention by stating his opposition to violence and deleting the post [1, 3].
The Justice Department filed court documents defending its prosecution on August 18, 2026, maintaining that the social media message could reasonably be read as threatening Trump's life [1, 2, 3]. The next scheduled court proceedings have not yet been announced.
