Former FBI Director James Comey is shown in 2018 in New York City. On Monday, Comey and his lawyers asked a judge to dismiss a case accusing him of threatening to kill President Donald Trump via a photo of seashells spelling out "86 47." File Photo by Dennis Van Tine/UPI | License Photo
July 27 (UPI) -- Former FBI Director James Comey formally asked a judge Monday to dismiss the case accusing him of threatening to kill President Donald Trump, saying a photo of seashells spelling out "86 47" can't be considered "a true threat."
"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," the motion filed by Comey's lawyers says.
Comey took the photograph of seashells forming those numbers on a North Carolina beach in 2025 and shared it online. He was then indicted by a grand jury in April on charges of threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.
Comey's attorneys said in the motion that the claim the shared photo represented a real threat "is contradicted by every possible source of meaning: dictionaries, context, precedent and common sense."
