James Comey is interviewed onstage at 92NY on 30 May 2023 in New York City. Photograph: Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenJames Comey is interviewed onstage at 92NY on 30 May 2023 in New York City. Photograph: Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesUS justice department defends prosecution of James Comey over ‘8647’ seashell postJustice department claims there’s ‘no dispute’ over whether ex-FBI head’s post could be read as a threat against Trump
The US Department of Justice has defended its prosecution of former FBI director James Comey, claiming in new court documents there is “no serious dispute” that his social media post last year featuring a photo of seashells arranged to read “8647” could be interpreted as a threat against Donald Trump.
“There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump’” prosecutors wrote in a document filed on Tuesday in response to efforts by Comey’s efforts to have the case dismissed.
Comey was indicted in April after a grand jury in North Carolina charged him with making a threat against the US president and transmitting that threat, via social media, across state lines, over an image he posted on Instagram while vacationing in North Carolina last May.
In the photo, the seashells were arranged to read “8647”, which the president’s allies and supporters quickly denounced as a threat against Trump. The number “86” is often used as shorthand to mean to get rid of or remove something, while Trump is the 47th US president.
Comey deleted the photo after the uproar, saying he didn’t know that it could be interpreted as a violent threat. “It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he said.
In the court documents filed earlier this week, prosecutors with the eastern district of North Carolina continued to argue the post was a “coded message to his followers meaning ‘kill’ or ‘get rid of’ President Trump”.
Comey has denied the charges against him and his lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing that the post was protected speech and did not amount to a “true threat” against the president.
“The indictment alleges that Mr. Comey’s ‘86 47’ post constitutes a ‘true threat; on the President’s life,” Comey’s lawyers wrote in a filing last month. “That claim is contradicted by every possible source of meaning: dictionaries, context, precedent, and common sense. ‘86’ simply means ‘get rid of’ or ‘eject’ and has no violent connotation except in the most uncommon usages.”
Comey’s lawyers have argued that “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 have also said the case should be dismissed for “vindictive and selective prosecution” and have said the indictment is “not based on a goodfaith application of the law to the facts; instead, it effectuates a yearslong campaign by the President to use the criminal process to punish Mr. Comey for his protected speech and because of the President’s deep-seated animosity”.
Trump has long feuded with Comey since his handling of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election while he was FBI director.
Last year, the justice department also indicted Comey in a separate case, alleging that he had lied to Congress. But those charges were later thrown out after a judge ruled the prosecutor handling the case was unlawfully appointed.
