US Justice Department accuses former FBI chief of threatening Trump

The US Justice Department has cited a legal thriller written by former FBI Director James Comey as evidence that he knew his social media post featuring the numbers “86 47” could be interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump, according to Reuters.

In court filings published late on August 18, US prosecutors argued that Comey’s novel contains parallels to the post, in which he shared a photograph of seashells arranged on a beach to form the numbers “86 47” 15 months ago. The book features a right-wing podcaster who uses coded language to encourage his followers to target political opponents.

“Just days before releasing a book about a charismatic public figure who publicly conveys messages instructing his followers to ‘get rid of’ his political enemies ... Comey posted a message that many observers, including federal and local law enforcement officers, reasonably interpreted to mean ‘kill President Trump’,” prosecutors wrote in the court filings.

Comey, whom Trump fired as FBI director in 2017, has denied any wrongdoing. He faces charges of threatening the US president and transmitting a threatening communication. His lawyers have argued that the case was brought in retaliation for Comey’s criticism of Trump and that the social media post did not meet the legal threshold for a threat of violence.

Comey has said he noticed the shell formation while walking with his wife on a beach in North Carolina and viewed it as a clever political statement. He later deleted the post after it sparked controversy, saying he was unaware that the numbers could be associated with violence.

His defence lawyers have presented evidence that the FBI unsuccessfully attempted to establish that Comey was aware of a violent interpretation of “86” based on his previous work prosecuting organised crime figures in New York.

Federal prosecutors have also suggested that Comey may have sought to capitalise on the incident to generate publicity for his novel “FDR Drive,” which was published in May 2025. They cited a text he reportedly sent to his literary agent in which he said the attention from the incident was “not my intention, but I’ll be OK if it sells books.”

By Jeyhun Aghazada