Shells on a beach = death threat?

More US news, I'm afraid (it's hard to look away).

Soon after President Trump's initial attempt to go after ex-FBI boss and one-time nemesis James Comey fell through when the courts dismissed the case with prejudice, the man has prevailed upon his Justice Department to indict Comey all over again, this time claiming that Comey threatened his life. Because, more than anything else, Trump hates to be thwarted, and he will spend million of dollars of taxpayers' money to wreak vengeance.

And, if the last attempt at indictment was flimsy and poorly executed, this one's going to be a doozy. Comey's supposed "threat" was a picture he shared on social media about a year ago, quickly removed, of some seashells on a beach forming the numbers "8647".

Confused? So was I. Apparently, the "47" is supposed to represent Donald Trump (the 47th US president, get it?) And the "86" is apparently slang in some language or other for "remove" or "take out". (I don't know. I don't make this stuff up.) 

So, DOJ's allegation is that, by sharing the image, Comey was personally threatening to kill Donald Trump. A stretch? Just a bit. At worst, it was Comey's hamfisted attempt to call for Trump's impeachment or removal from office. It would be hard to argue that it was a call for his death. It's no secret that Comey dislikes Trump (and vice versa), but a call for assassination? Hardly.

Comey claims that he was not aware of the possible violent implications of the image, thinking it was just a political statement of some sort. (Why would a public person publicly share a political statement that they don't even understand?) He says he took it down from his Instagram page as soon as someone explained to him how it might be interpreted.

So, I guess we'll see whether putting a few shells on a beach constitutes a treasonous threat. It would be the damnedest thing, don't you think?

UPDATE

It turns out the term "86" is in regular use in the restaurant trade, particularly in New York, but it has little or nothing to do with threatenimg to kill someone.

What it actually refers to is when an item is out of stock and needs to be re-ordered or replaced. It was first used back in the 1930s, and there is some debate as to whether it was first used to refer to the 86th item on Delmonico restaurant's menu, which was always the most popular item and the first one to sell out, or to a speakeasy called Chumleys which had a side entrance at 86 Bedford, which was always the best exit to use if the police raided. 

Apparently, over time, the restaurant idiom was occasionally used metaphorically, to mean get rid of or fire someone, or just make something disappoear, nothing more sinister than that.

Either way, there seems no way that James Comey (or Trump, for that matter).would have had any knowledge of such an abstruse expression, if indeed that is what the "8647" is supposed to refer to.