Comey Seeks Dismissal of "Seashells" Indictment, Citing Free Speech

Former FBI Director James Comey has asked a federal judge to throw out the indictment accusing him of threatening President Donald Trump, arguing the case represents a misuse of criminal law to punish protected speech.

The charges, filed in North Carolina in April, stem from an Instagram post Comey shared and later deleted, showing seashells arranged on a beach to spell out "86 47." According to the indictment, prosecutors allege Comey "did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the president of the United States."

Central to the dispute is the meaning of "86" — a term with deep roots in restaurant and bar culture, typically used to mean "get rid of" or "remove from the menu." Trump has argued the number carries a different meaning: mafia slang for killing someone, an interpretation many of his supporters have echoed. The "47" is widely understood to reference Trump as the 47th president.

In their new filing, Comey's lawyers pushed back forcefully on the government's reading. "That claim," the filing states, "is contradicted by every possible source of meaning: dictionaries, context, precedent and common sense." The defense maintains that "86" simply means to eject or discard something, with no violent connotation, and that treating the post as a genuine threat criminalizes an ambiguous piece of internet expression rather than any real menace to the president's safety.

The case has drawn attention well beyond its narrow legal question, becoming a flashpoint in broader debates over the boundaries of political speech online and how prosecutors interpret ambiguous, symbolic gestures made by public figures. Whether the judge accepts Comey's free-speech argument or allows the case to proceed will likely hinge on how the court weighs common usage and context against the government's more literal, threat-based reading of the post.

No ruling on the dismissal motion has yet been issued.