What does '86 47′ mean? The seashell numbers behind Comey's indictment, explained
Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on Tuesday on charges of making threats against President Donald Trump related to a photograph he posted on social media last year of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.”
The Justice Department and Trump allies contend those numbers amounted to a threat against the 47th president.
The indictment is the second against Comey over the past year. The first one, on unrelated false-statement and obstruction charges, was tossed out by a judge last year. Comey, who was fired from his post in the first year of Trump’s first term, has been a longtime adversary of the president.
Legal experts say the threats case over a seemingly innocuous pair of numbers presents significant hurdles for the prosecution and will likely be a challenge for the Justice Department to win.
What does ’86’ mean?
According to Merriam-Webster, the term “86” dates back to the 1930s and referred to an item at a soda counter being sold out. Over the years, the term broadened beyond the soda counter and is used commonly across the hospitality industry when an item is sold out or to refuse service to someone who is too drunk. It’s also informally used to mean “cancel” or “get rid of.”
Merriam-Webster has added a disclaimer: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”
The ’86 47′ connection to Trump
While at his beach house in North Carolina last year, Comey shared a photo on his Instagram account of what he described as a “cool shell formation” on the sand that formed the numbers “8647.”
The May post was quickly condemned by administration officials and Trump allies who claimed it blatantly targeted Trump, the 47th president of the United States.
Comey deleted the photo shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
In an interview with MSNBC, Comey said he assumed the numbers reflected a political message in reference to Trump because of the number “47,” but not a call to violence against the Republican president. He called the allegations “crazy.”
“In the Trump era, I’ve been investigated a lot, audited a lot, and so it’s not my first rodeo. I’m, in some strange way, the relationship he can’t get over,” Comey told Nicolle Wallace on “Deadline White House.”
Still, the image sparked an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service.
What does the indictment against Comey say?
The two-count indictment alleges that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”
It accuses Comey of acting “knowingly and willfully,” but its sparse language offers no support for that assertion. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to elaborate at a news conference on what evidence of intent the government has. But broad First Amendment protections for free speech, Supreme Court precedent and Comey’s public statements indicating that he did not intend to convey a threat will likely impose a tall burden for the government.
“Here, ‘86’ is ambiguous — it doesn’t necessarily threaten violence and the fact that it was the FBI Director posting this openly and notoriously on a public social media site suggests that he didn’t intend to convey a threat of violence,” John Keller, a former senior Justice Department official who led a task force to prosecute violent threats against election workers, wrote in a text message.
John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia, notes Comey was voluntarily interviewed by the Secret Service last year, and the fact that the indictment doesn’t charge him with making a false statement suggests that prosecutors do not have evidence that he lied to agents.
What is Comey’s response?
Comey responded to the indictment in a video posted to his Substack account, saying he was “still innocent” and “still unafraid.”
“And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go,” Comey said.
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