The Department of Justice is using one of James Comey’s crime novels in its case against the former FBI director, Publishers Weekly reports.
Comey was indicted in April on counts of “knowingly and willfully” threatening to inflict bodily harm upon and to kill President Trump. The charges stem from an Instagram photograph Comey posted of seashells on a beach arranged to spell “8647.”
In restaurant lingo, “86” means to remove or cancel an ingredient or a patron, and Trump is the 47th president of the United States. The Department of Justice claims that Comey used “86” to mean “kill.”
In a filing last week, the department pointed to FDR Drive, the 2025 crime novel from the author of Central Park West and Red Verdict. In FDR Drive, a federal prosecutor, Nora Carleton, does battle with right-wing extremists, including a podcaster who uses coded language to urge his listeners to kill an enemy. “Together with legendary investigator Benny Dugan and aided by colleagues at the FBI, Nora builds a case against one of the key players in this burgeoning movement, arguing before a jury that some speech is actually a deadly crime,” Simon & Schuster says of the book.
In a news release, the literary nonprofit PEN America’s legal director, Mara Gassmann, said, “Citing a novel to save an indictment that is constitutionally dubious is a desperate Hail Mary and should be rejected. A political message, expressed through a photo of seashells, is no true threat; now, the government’s use of Comey’s work of fiction to support this prosecution compounds the First Amendment concerns.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
