A Fox News host invoked an eyebrow-raising source in making the case that former FBI Director James Comey called for the assassination of President Donald Trump.
After Comey posted a photo that showed seashells arranged in the shape of “86 47,” Trump—and many of his supporters—said that the post called for the 47th president’s assassination.
To bolster the claim, Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany cited an entry for “86″ in an infamous online slang dictionary to which anyone can contribute.
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“It’s defined in the Urban Dictionary this way,” McEnany said on Friday’s edition of Outnumbered, proceeding to read the entry, which says the term means “to get rid of, originally for killing someone.”
“86 is frequently used as a callsign for murdering or getting rid of someone,” concluded McEnany, who served as Trump’s press secretary during his first term. “And you would think the FBI director would know that.”
The Urban Dictionary entry—one of more than a dozen definitions for the term on the site—was written by a user under the name Carlos Diaz in 2007.
“The phrase ’80 miles out and 6 feet under’ was reserved for someone who had to dig their own grave 80 miles from civilization and then get shot execution-style,” it says. “All terms for 86’d originated from this, be it alcohol or eliminating.”
After the outcry, Comey took down the image later on Thursday.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” he explained. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but l oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
According to Trump, however, the message was obvious.
“He knew what that meant. A child knows what that meant,” Trump said Friday. “If you’re FBI director and don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear.”
McEnany agreed with the president, quoting an FBI source who said, “The former director not knowing what that meant is the least believable thing he has ever said—and that is a low bar.”
Merriam Webster defines 86 as “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to refuse service to.” In contrast to Diaz’s etymology, it says that the term originated as 1930s food service slang for an item that was out of stock.
The dictionary explains that it does not include “to kill” among its definitions for the term due, in part, to the “sparseness of use.”
Diaz’s definition for 86 isn’t even the most popular one on Urban Dictionary.
The top entry, written in 2005 by a user named Baz, defines the word as “to remove, end usage, or take something out or away.” It says that the slang originated at Chumley’s, a Prohibition-era New York City speakeasy.
This origin of the term earned the sign-off of The New Yorker‘s notoriously fastidious fact-checkers, appearing in a 2016 profile of Chumley’s, which was resuscitated that year as a chic restaurant.
Comey is reportedly under investigation by the Secret Service for his post. He was originally appointed as FBI director by former President Barack Obama in 2013, remaining in the role until he was fired by Trump in May 2017.
