President Donald Trump is desperately trying to prop up the Justice Department’s criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey.
The case, widely seen as petty revenge on Comey for his role in the previous investigation into Trump, has even been ridiculed by allies of the president, with one former Department of Justice official calling it “the worst case DOJ has filed in my lifetime.”
The whole saga hinges on seashells Comey found on a North Carolina beach almost a year ago. They were arranged in the sand to spell out “86 47.” He photographed the scene and shared the image on Instagram with the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
Now, under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who took over for Pam Bondi after she was fired for reportedly not doing enough to go after Trump’s political foes, the case has been resurrected, and Trump has taken to Truth Social to explain that he sees the shell formation as a threat to his life.
Posting at around midnight on Wednesday, the 79-year-old president explained that “‘86’ is a mob term for ‘kill him.’”
“They say 86 him! 86 47 means ‘kill President Trump.’ James Comey, who is a Dirty Cop, one of the worst, knows this full well! EIGHT MILES OUT, SIX FEET DOWN! Didn’t he also lie to the FBI about this??? I think so!” he added.
The number 86 is sometimes used as slang for tossing something out or getting rid of it, including in restaurant kitchens. Some Trump allies have been at pains to suggest the term has a secondary, lesser-known, meaning with a more macabre edge.
“He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump said on Fox News last year.
Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos said on Wednesday during an interview with Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl that the case is so weak that even lawyers close to the president expect it to be, well, eighty-sixed.
“Even Trump’s allies are privately calling it embarrassing, or—as one very prominent former Trump DOJ official told me last night—depressing,” Karl said.
“I have spoken to no serious lawyers who think these charges will result in a conviction,” he added. “The near-universal view is that it will be thrown out before it gets to trial.”
CNN host Kaitlan Collins said on Tuesday that she had spoken to a former Department of Justice official who told her, “This might be the worst case DOJ has filed in my lifetime.”
Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tom Dupree told Collins of the former DOJ official’s assessment, “Well, it’s not in the Top 10 of the best cases they’ve ever filed, I’ll put it that way.”
