Attorneys for James Comey have asked a federal judge to dismiss the seashells-based prosecution of the former FBI director, arguing that “dictionaries, context, precedent, and common sense” gut the Trump administration’s claim that a photo he posted on Instagram could possibly constitute an actual threat against President Donald Trump.

If the case were to survive the legal challenges, it would go to trial in October. Comey was indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina in April. Prosecutors argued that an image he posted online of seashells grouped in the formation of the numbers “86 47” was a threat against the president. Matthew Petracca, a rookie federal prosecutor and former Republican official who first brought the case, has since moved off the case.

The term “86” is widely understood to be a restaurant term meaning to be out of something. Trump is the 47th president.

Comey’s team argued in a court filing Monday that no reasonable person aware of the relevant context would read the phrase as a suggestion of violence and that — even if it could be read that way — “a reasonable observer would still understand Mr. Comey’s post as mere political hyperbole, not a true threat.”

“The Supreme Court has rejected threats prosecutions based on speech far more directly threatening than Mr. Comey’s seashells post here,” the team of eight attorneys wrote.

“Forcing Mr. Comey to stand trial for a statement opposing the President — even if he is ultimately acquitted — would itself be an unconstitutional punishment of free speech,” they wrote.

The Justice Department has until Aug. 18 to respond to Comey’s motions to dismiss the case.

Comey’s team is expected to file a motion arguing that the case is the product of selective and vindictive prosecution by Tuesday.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia separately ruled that it was “difficult to fathom how any reasonable observer” would view an “8647” flag flown by protesters on National Park Service land as a true threat. During oral arguments, the government itself conceded there were circumstances in which those numbers together wouldn’t be considered a threat against the president.

Comey has said the seashells case highlights Trump’s “bottomless desire“ for revenge.

Last year, a Trump ally who had never worked as a prosecutor before brought a separate case against Comey over congressional testimony he gave back in 2020, but a federal judge dismissed that case after ruling Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed.

The lawyers argued the case is about protected free speech, and seeking to prosecute the case would only discourage free debate over politics — a tenet of American society.

Comey’s team also argued that Trump’s public pronouncements have been far more violent: The president “asserted that a video posted by several Members of Congress criticizing military policy was ‘punishable by death’ and was cause for ‘hang[ing] them’”; he remarked during the 2016 campaign that “Second Amendment people” might be the only ones who could stop Hillary Clinton if she were elected; he made comments about Rep. Liz Cheney being a “radical war hawk” and then stated, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

Comey’s attorneys also pointed to a line Trump’s legal team made as they sought to dismiss the Jan. 6, 2021, case against him.

“As the president himself has argued when he was a defendant in a criminal case, an ‘indictment must be dismissed’ where it ‘seeks to criminalize core political speech and advocacy that lies at the heart of the First Amendment,” they wrote.