Prosecutors are leaning on fiction to make their case against a former FBI director. The U.S. Department of Justice has cited a novel written by James Comey in its effort to persuade a federal judge to keep criminal charges alive against him, stemming from an Instagram post featuring seashells arranged to read "86 47" on a North Carolina beach.

The government argues the image was a veiled threat against President Donald Trump. In a new court filing submitted late Tuesday, prosecutors suggested that Comey, much like a right-wing podcast host in his novel Roosevelt Avenue, was sending coded signals to his followers to eliminate his political enemies.

The filing from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, led by W. Ellis Boyle, stated: "On May 15, 2025, a charismatic leader named James Comey, through the magical power of the internet, issued a coded message to his followers meaning to 'kill' or 'remove' (a euphemism for 'kill') President Trump." This document was one of several responses filed Tuesday, countering Comey's lawyers' motions to dismiss the indictment on grounds of retaliatory and selective prosecution.

Comey, a longtime critic of Trump who was fired as FBI director in 2017, remains a frequent target of the president's verbal attacks. His legal team maintains the seashell post was not a threat, pointing out that the term "86" is commonly used in restaurants to indicate a menu item is sold out, while Trump is the 47th president of the United States.

However, Boyle's office argued in its new filing that "there is no serious dispute that an objective observer of Comey's post would read it as 'kill President Trump.'" The filing added: "Comey has admitted that '47' refers to President Trump. And the Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (2nd edition) defines '86' as: to discard, to get rid of (1940s); (1970s) to kill, murder, execute; (1980s) to end, prepare to leave, sell out, or exhaust."

In a sworn affidavit submitted Tuesday evening, Boyle asserted that no one "ordered, directed, or pressured" him to prosecute Comey. Comey's attorneys, in their late July motion to dismiss, claimed that "86 47" is "a widely known political slogan used to express opposition to the president." The defense motion stated: "No rational observer would interpret '86 47' as implying violence—let alone a threat that Comey himself would commit violence against the president."

Comey's filing also highlighted that in May 2026, under the direct instruction of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, "the FBI conducted open-source queries and AI searches for the term '86'—namely on Google AI and ChatGPT." The results were varied, with one showing: "Many career law enforcement officers, including former FBI agents, have publicly objected, stating they had never heard '86' used to mean murder in over 35 years of service, believing it to be purely a restaurant or bar term for removing an item."

Another search returned documents indicating that Merriam-Webster has not officially included the violent connotation of "86," as it is relatively new and lacks widespread usage compared to its meaning in the food service industry. Comey was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia in September 2025 on charges related to allegedly lying during his 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has denied any wrongdoing. A judge dismissed the first case in November, ruling that Trump's former personal attorney, Lindsay Halligan, was unlawfully appointed as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and therefore lacked the authority to obtain the indictment against Comey.