Former FBI Director James Comey has asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal charges accusing him of threatening President Donald Trump, arguing that a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach amounted to protected political speech rather than a call to violence.
Comey is charged with threatening to kill Trump after posting an Instagram image of seashells forming the numerical arrangement “86 47.” His lawyers filed a motion on Monday contending that the government cannot prove the post constituted a “true threat” against the president, who fired Comey in 2017 and has repeatedly called for his prosecution.
The slogan “86 47” has long been interpreted to mean “get rid of” or “eject,” and has appeared on thousands of items sold online and at protests across the country. Defense attorneys argued that singling out one of the president’s prominent critics for republishing a widely circulated political statement violates the First Amendment.
“That attempt to suppress core political speech contravenes both the statutes at issue and the First Amendment,” Comey’s attorneys wrote in the filing, framing the post as the expression of another person’s political opposition rather than an incitement.
The seashells case marks the second federal prosecution brought against Comey in recent months. An earlier case in Virginia, which accused him of lying to Congress, was dismissed last November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges had been unlawfully appointed.
That same prosecutor had also charged New York Attorney General Letitia James, another figure Trump has publicly criticized. Both cases have drawn scrutiny as part of a broader pattern of Justice Department investigations directed at individuals who have clashed with the administration.
Trump has a long history of hostility toward Comey, using pejorative language against the former director since his dismissal. The prosecution unfolds against a backdrop of heightened tensions between the president and his critics, echoing earlier disputes such as his public remarks surrounding the death of former special counsel Robert Mueller.
Prosecutors have yet to respond in detail to the dismissal motion. The court’s ruling on whether the seashells post meets the legal threshold for a criminal threat is expected to shape the direction of the case and could carry broader implications for how political speech on social media is treated under federal law.