A demonstrator holds up an “8647” signal at a “No Kings” protest in Louisville, Ky., in June 2025. It is an anti-Trump slogan, with a number of interpretations.
Jon Cherry/AP
disguise caption
toggle caption
Jon Cherry/AP
Former FBI Director James Comey was charged this week over a year-old social media publish of a seashell formation that the Justice Division alleges constituted a risk to President Trump’s life.
A grand jury returned an indictment on Tuesday saying that Comey “did knowingly and willfully make a risk to take the lifetime of, and to inflict bodily hurt upon, the President of the USA” when he posted an image of seashells within the sand on a North Carolina seashore in Might 2025.
The seashells had been organized — it isn’t clear by whom — to kind the numbers “8647.” Eighty-six is a slang time period extensively interpreted as which means “do away with,” whereas Trump is the forty seventh (and forty fifth) president.
“I am nonetheless harmless, I am nonetheless not afraid, and I nonetheless consider within the impartial federal judiciary, so let’s go,” Comey mentioned in a Substack video response to the indictment, which carries a most jail sentence of 10 years.
Comey has been an outspoken critic of Trump for the reason that president fired him in 2017, 4 years into his 10-year time period, as he was overseeing an investigation into alleged Russian meddling within the 2016 election.
However Comey mentioned final 12 months that he interpreted the shell formation as a purely political message, writing, “I did not understand some people affiliate these numbers with violence.” He rapidly took the publish down after backlash from Republicans and Trump members of the family. However that did not cease administration officers from opening an investigation.
The Trump Justice Division has aggressively pursued circumstances in opposition to his political enemies. Simply months in the past, it tried to indict Comey in a separate case associated to his 2020 congressional testimony. These expenses had been dismissed in November by a federal decide, who dominated that the prosecutor dealing with the case was unlawfully appointed.
This new indictment comes simply days after a gunman breached a safety checkpoint on the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, allegedly focusing on administration officers. Trump has survived two earlier assassination makes an attempt, and Justice Division officers careworn this week that it takes all such threats critically.
At a Tuesday press convention, Performing Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche disregarded a reporter’s query about proving Comey’s intent, given the truth that he apologized and took down the publish.
“You show intent with witnesses, with paperwork, with the defendant himself to the extent … it is acceptable,” he mentioned. “And that is how we’ll show intent on this case.”
A number of that will hinge on the which means of 4 numbers.
From the soda counter to social media
The time period “eighty-six” is assumed to originate from Twentieth-century soda counters, like this one in Washington, D.C.
Marjory Collins/Hulton Archive
disguise caption
toggle caption
Marjory Collins/Hulton Archive
In line with Merriam-Webster, the time period “eighty-six” more than likely comes from Thirties soda-counter slang which means an merchandise had offered out (maybe a rhyming cousin of “nix”).
“A Hollywood soda-jerker forwards this glossary of soda-fountain lingo on the market,” reads a Might 1993 story within the Camden, N.J., Courier-Put up. “‘Shoot one’ and ‘draw one’ is one coke and one espresso … An ‘echo’ is a repeat order. ‘Eighty-six’ means all out of it.”
It took on new which means as a verb within the Fifties, initially to imply refusing service to a buyer and later extra broadly “to do away with, to throw out.”
“Saloonkeepers in bygone days, on observing a patron changing into intoxicated from ingesting onerous liquor, typically switched his drinks to 86-proof liquor,” reads a 1972 Minneapolis Star article. “The apply was described as ‘eighty-sixing’ the patron, and that is in all probability the supply of the verb used immediately to explain the chopping off of service to a patron by a bartender.”
Merriam-Webster says the service trade which means of “86” is closest to the way it’s mostly used immediately, although different interpretations have emerged over time. A type of is “to kill.”
The dictionary calls {that a} “logical extension” of the time period, however does not embody it in its official definition “as a consequence of its relative recency and sparseness of use.”
“86” has brought on a stir in U.S. politics earlier than
James Comey, pictured talking on his e book tour final Might, served as FBI director from 2013 to 2017.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photos
disguise caption
toggle caption
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photos
The time period appears to have crossed into the political lexicon in 2018, when Sarah Huckabee Sanders — then-press secretary within the first Trump administration — was kicked out of a Virginia restaurant.
The restaurant’s closing workers wrote “86 Sarah Huckabee Sanders” on their word to the morning supervisor, a photograph of which went viral.
Later, in October 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, gave a Zoom interview to Meet the Press with an “8645” pin seen behind her, prompting some Republicans to surprise if she was sending a pointed, or probably violent, message.
The Detroit Information reported on the time that Whitmer’s workforce mentioned the Trump marketing campaign’s response was proof that nobody within the marketing campaign had labored within the restaurant trade.
Anne Curzan, a linguist on the College of Michigan, advised Michigan Public on the time that probably the most correct which means of the time period was doubtless the identical as within the Huckabee Sanders incident.
“It might imply they’re fired, that there isn’t any extra use for them, they have been requested to go away,” she mentioned. “In order that which means is on the market as properly, which is extra related to the ‘8645.’”
Blanche was requested on Tuesday whether or not extra such circumstances are forthcoming, together with in opposition to Whitmer. He declined to touch upon different investigations.
“So far as different incidents of threats in opposition to the president of the USA, these might be investigated,” he mentioned, although mentioned it was not acceptable to check examples. “Each case is completely different, the details are completely different, who makes the risk issues, what the risk says issues.”
Conservatives have used it too
The “8647” slogan has quietly develop into a code for opposition to Trump, circulating in TikTok posts and on protest indicators within the months after he took workplace.
The web publication Distractify reported in March 2025 that folks use it to imply they do not need Trump to be president.
“The message is imprecise about how precisely these individuals wish to try this, however it appears that evidently the purpose is to sign that you do not need Trump to be within the White Home,” it mentioned.
Merchandise stamped with “8647,” from shirts and hats to bumper stickers and pins, are provided by distributors on websites like Amazon and Etsy.
Nonetheless, the development did not begin with Trump. Loads of “8646” gadgets — a reference to former President Joe Biden — are on the market on on-line platforms too. NPR reached out to Amazon and Etsy to ask whether or not these gadgets violate their vendor insurance policies prohibiting gadgets that glorify violence.
Some liberal critics on social media have mentioned that Republicans didn’t appear to take challenge when the identical slogan — or much more violent rhetoric — was focused at a Democratic president.
They level to examples of violent rhetoric by the president and his allies, together with Trump’s 2024 publish on Reality Social that includes a video of a truck driving on the freeway with a picture of Biden tied up on the again. In 2021, then-Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., was censured after sharing an anime video of himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and swinging swords at Biden.
And a few have discovered examples of distinguished conservatives utilizing the “86” slogan over time, digging up far-right influencer Jack Posobiec’s 2022 tweet studying: “86 46.” In 2024, then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., used the time period to explain Republicans who had been faraway from workplace, which didn’t trigger notable controversy on the time.
Editor’s word: A model of this story initially printed in 2025.
