DOJ Fights to Keep Comey Shell Photo Case Alive in Court
Prosecutors argue Comey's '86 47' seashell post was a clear death threat against Trump. The DOJ cited Comey's own novel to make the case.
Federal prosecutors are pushing back hard against any attempt to dismiss the criminal case tied to James Comey's now-infamous social media post featuring seashells arranged to read '86 47.' The DOJ told the presiding judge flat out: no reasonable person could look at that image and walk away with a benign interpretation.
The government's argument is blunt. Prosecutors wrote that 'there is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey's post could read it to mean Kill President Trump.' In legal terms, that framing matters — it sets the bar for what a jury would need to decide, and the DOJ thinks the evidence clears it easily.
Read more Trump and Carney Talk as 50% Canada Tariffs Loom Large →
Here's where it gets interesting for anyone following the tradeable news cycle: the DOJ reached into Comey's own published novel to bolster its argument. Using a defendant's own creative work to establish intent or knowledge of a phrase's meaning is an aggressive but calculated prosecutorial move — it undercuts any claim that Comey was unaware of the violent connotation attached to '86 47.'
The phrase '86' is widely understood in American slang to mean eliminate or kill, and '47' is a direct reference to the 47th president, Donald Trump. Comey deleted the post after widespread backlash, a fact that prosecutors are likely leaning on as consciousness of guilt. The combination of the post, the deletion, and now the novel citation makes this a tougher case to simply walk away from for the defense.
This case sits at the volatile intersection of political speech, social media conduct, and federal threat statutes — and the judge's ruling on the dismissal motion could set precedent that reaches well beyond Comey himself. Continue reading at US Top News and Analysis.
