Federal prosecutors want to throw the book at former FBI Director James Comey in their seashells-based case — including his own crime novel.
In court filings defending their controversial criminal case against Comey, a frequent critic and target of President Donald Trump, prosecutors in North Carolina say his book “FDR Drive” bolsters their argument that a picture he posted on Instagram of seashells on the shore arranged to say “8647” constituted a “true threat” against the president’s life. Trump is the 47th president.
The documents filed Tuesday describe the book, which was released days after the post, as focusing on a prosecutor pursuing a “far-right wing media personality” whose foes are being killed after “he singled out his enemies by name and suggested ‘something should be done’ about them.”
While Comey is a former prosecutor and Trump has been repeatedly accused of inspiring death threats and harassment of people he has complained about online, the filing compares Comey to his book’s villain.
“On May 15, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey, through the wonder of the internet, posted a coded message to his followers meaning ‘kill’ or ‘get rid of’ (a euphemism for ‘kill’) President Trump,” the filing says.
The government also used the book to push back against Comey’s argument that he is a target of selective or vindictive prosecution, given the prevalence of “8647,” “8646” and “8645” apparel and other items for sale online.
Comey’s filing had noted there were over 200,000 items on sale with the messages on Amazon — and no evidence that the government was pursuing charges against any buyers or sellers.
Prosecutors said that “not every statement containing the phrase ‘8647’ is equal” and pointed to the “surrounding context.”
“Comey published a novel where the antagonist successfully persuades his followers to kill his political rivals by communicating coded messages online. Needless to say, Comey does not and could not point to similar evidence in any comparator case — let alone a threat against the sitting President of the United States,” they argued.
NBC News has reached out to Comey’s legal team for comment.
Comey was indicted on two felony counts this year alleging he “knowingly and willingly” made “a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States” by posting the picture with the message “cool shell formation on my beach walk” nearly a year earlier.
Comey, who has pleaded not guilty, said he deleted the post after he was told the term “86” — longtime restaurant slang meaning “get rid of” — could be taken to mean “kill.”
Prosecutors noted that Comey’s wife sent him a screenshot of what “86” means minutes before her husband published the post.
“At 3:12 pm, Comey’s wife sent him a screenshot of what appeared to be a partial (cropped) definition of ‘U.S. English slang’ indicating that ‘86’ means ‘to get rid of or refuse service,’” Severo writes. “Two minutes later, at 3:14 pm, Comey posted a picture of the seashells on his Instagram account with the caption ‘Cool shell formation on my beach walk.’”
While major dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, do not include “kill” as a definition for “86,” the prosecutors found one that did. Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang (2nd Edition) defines “86” this way: “(1940s) to throw out, get rid of, (1970) to kill, to murder, to execute judicially, (1980) to be finished ready to leave or out of an item or be exhausted,” the filing says.
The filing says that in the days after the post was deleted, Comey and his publishing agent texted about whether the uproar over it would help his book.
“You’ve gone viral,” the agent told Comey. “Not my intention, but I’ll be OK if it sells books,” Comey replied. “Music to an agent’s ears,” the unidentified agent responded, according to the filing.
Prosecutors also pushed back against Comey’s legal argument that he is the victim of a prosecution that was directed by a vengeful president still enraged by Comey’s having investigated his ties to Russia after the 2016 election.
Although Comey has “cobbled together a seventy seven-page collection of every public statement President Trump has ever made regarding Comey, spanning back nearly a decade, those statements are irrelevant to the analysis,” they argued. “The President’s view of a prior subordinate’s performance in conducting his official duties — or lack thereof — can hardly be retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.”
“Missing is any evidence that ‘the ill will, whoever its bearer, actually motivated his prosecution,’” the filing says, adding that the decision was made solely by W. Ellis Boyle, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
“I made that determination individually” and “did not feel pressured, coerced, or motivated in any way from any individual,” Boyle said in an affidavit. He said that Todd Blanche, then the acting attorney general, was not aware that he was bringing charges against Comey until the day before his office presented the case to the grand jury.
And the filing says that even if Trump had ordered the prosecution, there would be nothing wrong with that.
The “Chief Executive directing his subordinates to exercise core Executive functions is a feature, not a bug, of our constitutional system. The purported ‘independence’ of DOJ that Comey cites is antithetical to the constitutional separation of powers (which lodges the Executive power in the President alone),” it says.
