Washington DC - As President Donald Trump and his administration once again attempt to legally go after former FBI Director James Comey, some of his most hardcore MAGA allies may have sabotaged the case before it even began.
On Tuesday, Comey was hit with an indictment regarding a now-deleted Instagram post shared last year that showed the numbers "86 47" spelled out on a beach in seashells.
The president and his team – who previously tried, and failed, to legally target Comey – claim "86" was slang for kill and that "47" was a reference to Trump being the 47th president.
But in an article published on Wednesday, TMZ pointed out that there are multiple meanings for "86," as Merriam-Webster defines it as "slang meaning 'to throw out,' 'to get rid of,' or 'to refuse service to.'"
While the term has been adopted in recent years from military jargon to mean "to kill," Merriam-Webster does not list it as such due to its "sparseness of use."
TMZ also noted that former Florida Congressman and longtime MAGA loyalist Matt Gaetz has previously used the term himself.
In an X post from February 2024, he bragged that the Republican Party had "now 86'd" several of its own members, all of whom had either stepped down or been ousted – falling more in line with the "to get rid of" definition.
"86" has also been used by MAGA conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who shared an X post in January 2022 that read "86 46," in reference to then-President Joe Biden.
Critics now believe the term's ambiguous meaning, the use of the term by MAGA, and Trump's own violent rhetoric could be used to help Comey build a strong case against his indictment.
Matt Gaetz insists James Comey meant violence
During his time as a Congressman, Gaetz – whom Trump initially wanted to appoint as his Attorney General – faced allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors.
While the Department of Justice decided not to file charges against him, a congressional committee released a report to the public of their own investigation, which found he had paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 separate occasions during his time in office.
Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress before they could oust him, and he withdrew his name from consideration as Trump's Attorney General.
However, he was soon given his own show on the right-wing One America News.
Gaetz has long been supportive of the Trump administration's going after Comey. On Tuesday's episode of his show, he praised the DOJ for "actually starting to deliver on some accountability that the American people expected" with Comey's indictment.
Last year, when asked by The Independent what was different from his use of "86" compared to Comey's, Gaetz argued, "I was speaking in the past tense about things that had already happened. Comey was putting out a call for future action. These are distinct."