Federal investigators interviewed one of the most notorious mob turncoats in American history to build their case that former FBI Director James Comey knew exactly what "86" meant when he posted it alongside the number "47", and his own defense team's filing may have handed prosecutors a damaging admission.
A sworn affidavit filed by Comey's defense lawyer Patrick Fitzgerald reveals that an FBI case agent called Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the former underboss of the Gambino crime family, on May 8, 2026, to discuss an upcoming interview about Comey's now-deleted Instagram post. During that call, Gravano told the agent he believed Comey "had to know" what the term "86" meant "as it related to killing someone."
Comey faces two federal charges in U.S. District Court in eastern North Carolina: threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. The charges stem from a photo he posted to Instagram in May 2025 showing seashells arranged on a beach to spell out "86 47", a phrase prosecutors say was a reference to killing the 47th president, Donald Trump. The Department of Justice filed the charges in April.
Fitzgerald filed the affidavit to support Comey's motions to dismiss the case. His argument: that the government's theory, Comey understood "86" as mob slang for killing because he once prosecuted Gambino crime family members, falls apart under scrutiny. FBI searches of the Gambino case materials turned up no references to the term "86," the filing states. And Gravano himself did not recall ever discussing the term with Comey.
But the affidavit cuts both ways.
In a separate 25-minute recorded interview, Gravano told the FBI that "86" generally means to "get rid of" someone and that to him, as a "gangster," it means "to kill." He went further: Gravano characterized Comey's seashell post as a "call for violence against President Trump," using the blunt phrase "let's kill Trump" to describe what he believed the message conveyed.
The affidavit notes one distinction Gravano drew. He did not claim Comey's post was a statement threatening that Comey would personally kill the president. In Gravano's reading, it was a general incitement, not a direct personal threat.
That distinction may matter in court. Whether it helps Comey is another question. A former mob underboss, a man who admitted to participating in 19 murders, looked at the post and saw a call for violence. Comey's own lawyer put that on the record.
Comey offered his version of events in a May 2025 interview with MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, shortly after the post went viral and he removed it. He said he did not arrange the seashells himself and did not initially see the post the way critics did.
Comey told Wallace:
"I don't see it the way some people are still saying it is, but again, I don't want any part of any violence. I've never been associated with violence, and so that's why I took it down."
He added that he thought the arrangement was "a clever way to express a political view" and praised the artistry involved, saying the shells were "the same color for each of the letters" and that "it took a lot of work." He insisted there was "no dark intention on my part or my spouse's part."
Comey also told Wallace:
"Somebody with artistic flair did that, and I have a hard time believing it was anybody with a dark intention, and it certainly was no dark intention on my part or my spouse's part."
So his defense rests on this: a former FBI director, a man who spent years prosecuting organized crime, stumbled upon seashells arranged to spell "86 47" on a beach, admired the craftsmanship, posted it to social media, and never once connected the term to its well-known meaning in the criminal underworld he had spent a career investigating.
The connection between Comey and the Gambino family is not incidental. Comey served as lead prosecutor in United States v. John Gambino et al. in the 1990s, the same case in which Gravano served as a cooperating witness. That history is central to the government's theory: a man who led a major organized-crime prosecution would have encountered the term "86" and understood its lethal connotation.
Fitzgerald's affidavit tries to sever that link. He points to the FBI's own review of the Gambino case files, which found no references to "86." And he highlights that Gravano could not recall ever discussing the term with Comey during the trial or its preparation.
But the prosecution does not need to prove Comey learned the term from Gravano personally. It needs to show Comey understood what "86" meant. Gravano's statement, that Comey "had to know", is an opinion from a cooperating witness, not a smoking gun. Yet it is an opinion from someone who worked the same case, from the other side of the table, and who has no obvious motive to help the government convict a man who once helped put his associates away.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, discussed the DOJ probe and Comey's Instagram post on Fox News's "Jesse Watters Primetime," drawing attention to the case as it moves through pretrial motions.
The current status of Comey's motions to dismiss remains unresolved. Fox News Digital contacted the FBI for comment on the Gravano interview. No response was noted in the reporting.
Several questions hang over the case. The exact date of Gravano's 25-minute recorded interview, separate from the May 8 phone call, has not been disclosed. The precise filing date of Fitzgerald's affidavit is described only in relative terms. And the broader question of whether a former FBI director can credibly claim ignorance of one of the most common slang terms in organized crime remains the central tension in the case.
Defense lawyers file affidavits to help their clients. This one put a former mob killer on the record saying Comey's post looked like a call to kill the president. If that is the best the defense has, Comey's legal team may want to reconsider what it puts in writing.
