Federal prosecutors have indicted former FBI Director James Comey on two counts of threatening the president's life, alleging that an Instagram post containing the term '86' constituted a serious expression of intent to do harm. The post showed seashells arranged to read '86 47,' posted last year while Trump was president after winning the 2024 election. But restaurant and hospitality workers across New York City say the term is deeply embedded in their industry with an entirely different meaning — referring to items that are out of stock or unavailable.
"It's probably the most overused word in hospitality," said Mike Reyes, 45, an operational excellence consultant at FLIK Hospitality Group who has worked in restaurants since age 14. "Any time you're out of anything, it's 86-ed — meaning it's unavailable and needs to be replenished or replaced." Reyes said he was surprised by the legal interpretation of Comey’s post. "It's weird, because it's a term used so often and without malice," he said.
What the Left Is Saying
Democratic legal analysts have raised concerns about the breadth of the threat charge against Comey. Civil liberties groups argue that applying criminal liability to common slang risks overcriminalizing everyday language. The indictment states that "a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret" Comey's post "as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump." However, critics question whether ordinary Americans in various industries should be held to such a standard when using industry-standard terminology.
Defense attorneys and former DOJ officials from both parties have noted that prosecuting language-based threats requires proving the speaker intended to convey a true threat — not merely that words could theoretically be interpreted as threatening. "The government has to prove Comey knew how some might interpret '86' and deliberately chose it anyway," one former federal prosecutor told NBC News on background. "That's a higher bar than just showing the word exists in multiple contexts."
What the Right Is Saying
Trump offered reporters in the Oval Office his interpretation of the term's meaning. "Well, if anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86 — it's a mob term for kill him," he said. "You ever see the movies? '86 him,' the mobster says to one of his wonderful associates, '86 him.' That means 'kill him.' It's, I think of it as a mob term." The Justice Department has argued that context matters and that any reasonable person would understand the implications of posting such imagery.
White House officials noted that threatening language directed at the president — regardless of how speakers frame their intent — warrants serious examination. "The Secret Service takes all potential threats seriously," a spokesperson said in a statement. "We defer to the Justice Department on matters of prosecution." Republican lawmakers have largely supported the administration's position, with several senators calling the indictment appropriate given the gravity of alleged threats against a sitting president.
What the Numbers Show
The term '86' has documented use in American English dating back at least to the 1930s. According to Nicole Holliday, a professor of linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley, the earliest recorded uses appear in New York City soda fountains to indicate when items were sold out. Merriam-Webster defines it as slang meaning "to throw out," "to get rid of," or "to refuse service to." The term has also been used since the 1950s to describe bar customers who had been cut off from drinking.
Restaurant industry surveys consistently show '86' remains among the most common terms in food service vocabulary. A 2019 article in St. Louis Magazine compiled nearly 20 different origin stories for the phrase, ranging from Delmonico's steak menu to Prohibition-era speakeasies at 86 Bedford Street. The mob-related interpretation "to kill" appears in limited film references — notably a line in 'Casino' — but lacks documented evidence as an originating source, according to Zach Jensen, content development manager for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.
The Bottom Line
The Comey case raises fundamental questions about how courts should interpret language that carries different meanings across professional and cultural contexts. Prosecutors must prove not only that '86' can mean "to kill" but that Comey intended that meaning when posting the image — a difficult standard given the term's widespread benign use in the hospitality industry.
The trial, expected to take place in federal court in North Carolina, will likely feature competing expert witnesses on slang usage and intent. Restaurant workers say they are watching closely, concerned that a broad interpretation could affect how they communicate in their own workplaces. "We'd have that as a joke — 'Where's Raoul? He got 86ed' — meaning he got fired or died," Reyes said. "But it's never been serious." A verdict is not expected before late spring.