The Department of Justice has filed a new brief in the case against former FBI Director James Comey, arguing that any viewer of his “86 47” post could interpret it as a threat against President Trump.
The “86” is believed to mean removing or getting rid of something, and the “47” has been interpreted to refer to Trump’s time as the 47th president.
According to the new filing, the post is similar to content in Comey’s novel, FDR Drive. “To be sure, Comey’s account suggests any similarity between his conduct and his novel are coincidental. But he has claimed that he and his wife were on a beach walk and happened upon seashells arranged in an ’86 47′ pattern. Of course, even if Comey did not arrange the seashells himself or plan his post in advance, that would not change the threatening nature of his post.”
“But there is also reason to doubt his story and therefore his overarching
credibility,” prosecutors wrote. “The shells were located four miles down the beach from the beachfront property where Comey was staying, in an area separated from the ocean by a sand dune. And there is no evidence that anyone else arranged, photographed, or even saw the shells.”
“There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump.’ Comey has admitted that the ’47’ referred to President Trump,” the filing adds.
Last month, Comey requested that the court toss his case. “To justify this prosecution, the indictment alleges that Mr. Comey’s ‘86 47’ post constitutes a ‘true threat’ on the President’s life. That claim is contradicted by every possible source of meaning: dictionaries, context, precedent, and common sense,” his filing read.
“‘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. 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.”
