Former FBI Director James Comey filed a motion on Monday to dismiss his indictment for threatening US President Donald Trump. The charges stem from an Instagram photo of seashells spelling '8647' (or '86 47'), which prosecutors claim constituted a threat against President Trump.
Comey's lawyers argue the post is protected speech under the First Amendment, and that the phrase '86 47' is a well-known political slogan expressing opposition to the president, not a 'true threat.'
The indictment was issued in April by a grand jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. After deleting the post, Comey contacted the local police chief and agreed to be interviewed by Secret Service agents.
Comey, a leading critic of President Trump who fired him as FBI director in May 2017, argues the meaning of '86' as 'kill' is uncommon and not found in most dictionaries. The motion states that thousands of items featuring the slogan '8647' have been sold on the internet and displayed at protests.
Comey's attorneys accused the Justice Department of singling out Comey as a prominent critic to suppress core political speech. They argued that prosecuting him is 'antithetical to fundamental First Amendment principles dating to the Founding.'
President Trump has publicly commented on the case, writing on Truth Social that '86' is a mob term for 'kill him' and adding 'Eight miles out, six feet down!' He told Fox News' Bret Baier that Comey 'knew exactly what that meant' and 'A child knows what that meant.'
The Justice Department contends the post amounts to 'a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States.' Comey's caption for the photo was 'Cool shell formation on my beach walk,' and he later stated in a separate post that he did not realize some associate the numbers with violence and that he opposes violence.
The seashell case was filed weeks after President Trump elevated his former criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche to Acting Attorney General, and after Trump fired his then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. Reports indicate Trump fired Bondi in part because she failed to prosecute his perceived political enemies fast enough.
This is the second time Comey has been indicted during Trump's second term; the first was in Virginia for lying to the Senate, later dismissed because the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed. Comey is scheduled to be arraigned on September 30, with a jury trial to begin on October 21.