Let’s 86 the Shell Game

Last week’s flap was over the Department of Justice indicting James Comey once again. This time the charge against the former FBI director is for threatening President Donald Trump’s life with a picture of seashell bits spelling out “86 47.” Comey found the shells scattered on a North Carolina beach and took a photograph.

The charge against Comey is among the most laughable reasons ever for an indictment. It shows that Todd Blanche, who is serving as acting attorney general, is trying desperately to please Trump in hopes of getting a permanent AG appointment. Otherwise how explain the far-fetched indictment claiming that by displaying the picture of shells Comey had threatened the life of the 47^th president.

To show the claim’s absurdity, take the definition of 86 alone. The on-line Urban Dictionary defines 86 as a term used in the hospitality industry to indicate that a particular item is “sold out” or “out of stock.”  For instance, if a restaurant was featuring lobster dinners and the kitchen ran out, waiters would be told to “86 the lobster.” The term can also be applied to someone whom it would be sensible to “refuse service to.”  It comes from 1930s soda fountain slang, identified in a Walter Winchell column of the era.

One school of thought believes the term was coined because eighty-six rhymes with “nix.” Rhyming slang, commonly known as “cockney slang,” originated in London’s East End. An example is the word “fart” which in rhyming slang becomes “raspberry tart” or “blowing a raspberry.”

Whatever the origins of 86, there is little reason to believe the term somehow suggests murderous intent. Yet Blanche says there’s more to the case and that there will be additional evidence.

Meanwhile Comey’s legal team is likely to cite vindictive or selective prosecution. That was the defense argument the first time Comey was indicted. In that earlier case, claiming Comey had lied to Congress, a federal judge tossed the charge, not on the basis of vindictive prosecution, but instead found Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor, had been appointed unlawfully. Nevertheless, most legal observers, believe that this second indictment with its farcical 86 threat is unlikely to advance as far as a jury trial.

If I seem dismissive of 86 as a murderous threat, it’s partly because I had my own  laughable encounter with the term. Full disclosure: It happened in 2003 when I was resigning as a Seattle Times columnist before filing to run for city council. Although I had written one last column, the Times hadn’t published it. Days later, I got a call from an editor at The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative paper, wanting to buy that final column. After I delivered the column, The Stranger editor, not one to miss an opportunity, handed me a check in payment. It was for precisely 86 dollars.