(NEW YORK) — Former FBI Director James Comey’s attorneys have filed a motion seeking the dismissal of the indictment charging Comey for posting a picture on his Instagram account of seashells spelling out “8647,” which federal prosecutors say constituted a threat against President Donald Trump’s life.
“This indictment targets protected speech at the heart of the First Amendment,” Comey’s attorneys said in their filing, regarding the charges announced in April over the since-deleted Instagram post from May 2025.
“Mr. Comey, an outspoken critic of President Trump, posted a photograph of seashells spelling out ’86 47,’ a well-known political slogan that expresses opposition to the President,” the filing said. “In fact, thousands of items featuring this slogan have been sold on the internet and are available to this day, and the slogan was commonly displayed at protests around the country in the months preceding Mr. Comey’s post.”
The filing, one of a series of anticipated efforts by Comey’s legal team to have his case thrown out before trial, accuses the Justice Department of singling out Comey “to prosecute one of the President’s most prominent critics for publishing another person’s statement of political opposition.”
“That attempt to suppress core political speech contravenes both the statutes at issue and the First Amendment,” Comey’s attorneys wrote.
Comey has vigorously denied his post was ever intended as a threat against Trump and is expected to plead not guilty in an arraignment scheduled for next month in North Carolina.
“Forcing Mr. Comey to stand trial for a statement opposing the President — even if he is ultimately acquitted — would itself be an unconstitutional punishment of free speech,” the filing said. “And it would invite future prosecutions by the Executive Branch against perceived political enemies for their opposition to the President. Government officials have already warned that they plan to target citizens if they ‘copycat’ Mr. Comey’s ‘political statement.'”
In their motion Monday, Comey’s attorneys revealed that after the former FBI director deleted his post, he contacted the local police chief “to notify him about the controversy over the post” and, as ABC News previously reported, agreed to be interviewed by Secret Service agents.
In making their argument that the post falls well short of the high legal bar to constitute a “true threat” as the Supreme Court has defined it, Comey’s lawyers claimed that prosecutors have provided no evidence to support the necessary standard showing Comey himself intended to engage in a violent act.
They also pointed to recent statements made by President Trump that they argue go much farther in potentially inciting violence against his political enemies, including Trump’s claim earlier this year that the lawmakers who posted the video urging service members to disobey unlawful orders amounted to “treason” that was “punishable by death.”
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