'No serious dispute': DOJ says Comey's cryptic '8647' post was a threat to Trump

WASHINGTON, DC: The Justice Department is doubling down in court on its interpretation of former FBI Director James Comey's cryptic “86 47” post as a threat against President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors say an objective viewer could read the seashell message as meaning “Kill President Trump,” while Comey disputes that interpretation.

The latest arguments came in court documents filed on Tuesday as Comey seeks to have the criminal case against him dismissed, the Guardian reported on Wednesday, August 19.

DOJ defends its reading of '86 47' post

“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 filing responding to Comey’s dismissal effort, the outlet reported.

The case centers on an Instagram photo Comey posted while vacationing in North Carolina last May. 

Seashells in the image were arranged to read “86 47,” a combination that Trump’s allies and supporters quickly denounced as a threat.

Prosecutors with the Eastern District of North Carolina said the post was a “coded message to his followers meaning ‘kill’ or ‘get rid of’ President Trump.”

Comey was indicted in April after a grand jury in North Carolina charged him with making a threat against the president and transmitting that threat across state lines through social media.

Comey deleted the photo after the uproar. He said he did not know the arrangement 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,” Comey said, according to the outlet.

Former FBI director argues post was protected speech

Comey’s lawyers have rejected the Justice Department’s interpretation and asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing the post was protected speech rather than a “true threat” against Trump.

The defense said the government’s claim was contradicted by “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 wrote in a filing last month.

They also argued that no reasonable observer would understand “86 47” as threatening violence, particularly violence Comey himself would commit against Trump.

The defense has separately accused the Justice Department of “vindictive and selective prosecution,” arguing the indictment was not based on a good-faith application of the law, the report stated.

James Comey also faces a separate legal dispute

Comey’s lawyers said the prosecution instead reflected what they described as Trump’s “deep-seated animosity” toward the former FBI director and a yearslong effort to punish him for protected speech.

Trump and Comey have long feuded over Comey’s handling of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election while Comey was FBI director.

The Justice Department also indicted Comey last year in a separate case, alleging he lied to Congress. 

Those charges were later thrown out after a judge ruled that the prosecutor handling the case was unlawfully appointed.

The latest court filing keeps the meaning of the “86 47” message at the center of Comey’s effort to end the prosecution, with prosecutors and his lawyers offering sharply different interpretations of the same post.