Former FBI Director James Comey is under investigation after posting a photo of seashells on the beach spelling out “8647.”
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey said Thursday.
The post caused an uproar among allies of President Donald Trump, the 47th president, who said Comey’s use of “86” was an incitement of violence against the president.
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
Comey, who served as FBI director from 2013 to 2017, when Trump fired him, deleted the photo and said in a followup post that he was not calling for violence against Trump.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” Comey said. “I didn’t realize some folks associated those numbers with violence. It never occured to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
Here’s a look at where the term “eighty-six” comes from and what it means.
How “eighty-six” started
There are several theories about when and where the term “86” originated. The signs generally point to the hospitality industry.
“It originated from the restaurant industry, where ‘86’ was used as a code to indicate that an item on the menu was not available, or alternatively that a customer needed to be removed from the premises,” said Ben Zimmer, a linguist, lexicographer and contributing writer for The Atlantic. “As a verb, ‘eighty-six’ first referred to discarding or getting rid of something, beginning in the late 1940s. When applied to a person, the verb typically meant to eject someone from the premises.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary traces “86” to “1930s soda-counter slang meaning that an item was sold out. There is varying anecdotal evidence about why the term eighty-six was used, but the most common theory is that it is rhyming slang for nix.”
Other theories say the number comes from soup kitchens during the Great Depression; a standard pot held 85 servings, so the 86th person would be out of soup. Some say 86 comes from a New York City speakeasy on 86th Street, St. Louis Magazine dining editor George Mahe wrote in 2019.
Zimmer said, “While ‘eighty-six’ can sometimes have violent connotations, the idea that it has to do with killing someone is a relatively recent development in the term’s history.”
In a post on its website, Merriam-Webster says it does not include killing in its definition of “eighty-six” “due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”
Zimmer said other dictionaries also don’t include that meaning in their definitions of the term. That meaning is generally found in slang dictionaries, he said.
When has the term come up in politics?
Comey said he assumed the shells were a “political message,” and he would not be the first person in politics to use the term “86” that way.
“We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell,” former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. posted on X in February 2024, referring to Kevin McCarthy losing his House speakership, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel leaving her role and Sen. Mitch McConnell announcing he would step down as majority leader after the presidential election. “Better days are ahead for the Republican Party.”
In October 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, faced backlash from Republicans after people pointed out a small pin with the numbers “8645” on a table behind her during an interview. (Trump was the 45th president at the time and was running for reelection.)
In January 2022, Jack Posobiec, a conservative activist posted “86 46” on X, referring to former President Joe Biden.
In 2018, a Virginia restaurant asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now Arkansas governor, to leave. According to news reports at the time, restaurant staff wrote “86 — Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” in their overnight note.
A search for the term “8647” on Etsy, an online marketplace, shows apparel, stickers and pins with the number. Most of the items include “anti Trump” in the title. Similar results come up on Amazon.
Both sites also sell items with the “8646.” The “patriotic,” “protest” and “Impeach Biden” are in the title for those products.
Is the term an incitement of violence?
PolitiFact spoke to several retired FBI agents about the use of the term and whether it is an incitement of political violence.
“I never in my 25 years of the FBI have I seen that term used with intention to incite violence,” Frank Figliuzzi, a retired FBI special agent and national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, said.
Michael Tabman, who also served as an FBI special agent and now runs a security consulting firm, said he does “not recall 86 being used as a call to political violence. I doubt Comey intended that to incite violence; only to express his dissatisfaction.”
“But, when I do hear people saying things that I know they do not mean, I caution them not to repeat that or the (Secret Service) will be visiting them,” Tabman said.
Bobby Chacon, another former FBI special agent, said all threats “must be taken in context to what’s happening in the world around them.”
“So while the term 86 has been around for a long time and used in many different ways,” Chacon said, “public figures using these have to be cognizant of the current political climate, and the context that some of their followers may interpret from their comments.”
By Maria Ramirez Uribe, PolitiFact staff writer.