Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted again by the Trump administration’s Justice Department, this time, apparently, because of an arrangement of seashells he posted on social media.
And the message they bore has at least a passing image to one involving our own Gov. Gretchen Whitmer some time before that.
On Tuesday, April 28, the Justice Department announced the Comey indictment, saying it revolved directly around an Instagram post in May 2025 by the former FBI chief fired by Trump nearly a decade ago that showed seashells on a beach spelling out the numbers “8647.”
“Threatening the life of the President of the United States is a grave violation of our nation’s laws,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
At the time of the Instagram post, Trump administration officials carped that the numbers could be taken as a message encouraging someone to kill Trump − who is both the 45th and 47th U.S. president. The numbers “86” are longstanding code in restaurants, bars and eateries to get rid of something or someone (or something or someone that is already gone).
Some argue it has morphed into a way of saying someone should be done away with, though that’s less clear in the lore. Comey, for what it’s worth, deleted the post, which originally said “cool shell formation on my beach walk,” saying he didn’t realize some people associated it with violence.
And the Whitmer reference?
As the Free Press reported in October 2020, Whitmer appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to criticize Trump, then in his first term, for fomenting domestic terrorism about a week after the FBI said it had stopped an attempt to kidnap her and a day after Trump appeared at a rally where he criticized Whitmer and his supporters chanted “lock her up.”
Behind her in the TV shot, which was done remotely, was a pin on a table with the numbers “8645.”
“Whitmer is encouraging assassination attempts against President Trump,” Trump’s campaign claimed at the time, adding “86 can be shorthand for killing someone.”
It is, of course, a federal crime to threaten the life of (or to inflict bodily harm against) the president (or vice president) punishable by up to five years in prison, though the Justice Department’s own reference manuals indicate that, “Proof that threatening words were uttered in a context such that a reasonable person would interpret them as mere political hyperbole, idle talk or jest indicates that the words do not constitute a threat within the scope of the statute.” And we’re not deaf to the seriousness of actual threats against the president’s life, especially after a gunman tried to enter the White House Correspondents Association dinner on April 25th, allegedly with the intention of harming federal officials, including Trump.
Seashells by the North Carolina seashore may strike many as a different level of threat, however. There are many, though, on both sides of the political spectrum who have called for a sharp reduction in any kind of violent rhetoric, perceived or otherwise.
Whitmer’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Free Press for any comment on the new Comey indictment, whether she’s had any contact with Trump administration prosecutors or “86”-ing anything in general but at the time, six years ago, her spokesman, Bobby Leddy said, “It’s pretty clear nobody in the Trump campaign has ever worked a food service job,” dismissing the criticism.
In any event, as far as we know, Whitmer and Trump remain on far better terms during his second term than they did at the end of his first. The statute of limitations on such a threat − even if it could somehow be construed to be one, in Whitmer’s case − apparently expired after five years.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Gov. Whitmer had her own ’86’-ing issue with President Trump
Reporting by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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