Comey's Lawyers Ask Judge to Toss Seashells Case

James Comey's lawyers say a beach photo doesn't belong in a federal courtroom. In a filing Monday, attorneys for the former FBI director asked a federal judge to toss the Trump administration's criminal case over an Instagram image of seashells arranged as "86 47," which prosecutors claim was a threat against President Trump, the 47th president, NBC News reports. Comey's team argues "dictionaries, context, precedent, and common sense" show the post was political commentary, not a "true threat," and that forcing him to trial would punish protected speech.

• "The slogan was commonly displayed at protests around the country in the months preceding Mr. Comey's post," the filing said, per CNBC. "But the government now singles out Mr. Comey to prosecute one of the President's most prominent critics for publishing another person's statement of political opposition. That attempt to suppress core political speech contravenes both the statutes at issue and the First Amendment."

• "'86' simply means 'get rid of' or 'eject' and has no violent connotation except in the most uncommon usages. Most dictionaries do not even list the meaning—'to kill'—that the government now proposes," Comey's lawyers, wrote, per the Hill. And when combined with '47'—slang for President Trump, the forty-seventh President—'86' becomes nothing more than a call to oppose President Trump. Thus, in this context, 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."
• Comey's lawyers cited Supreme Court rulings, a recent DC decision finding an "8647" protest flag wasn't a real threat, and even Trump's own past arguments that indictments targeting core political speech must be dismissed.
• Comey's team also argued that some of Trump's public remarks have been a lot more violent than a photo of seashells, NBC reports. During his 2016 campaign, he suggested that only "Second Amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton from ending gun rights, they noted. Discussing former Rep. Liz Cheney in 2024, when she was campaigning for Kamala Harris, Trump said, "She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face."
• The Justice Department has until Aug. 18 to respond.