The US president’s critic has been accused of making a coded endorsement of violence
The US Secret Service is investigating former FBI director James Comey for making a threat against President Donald Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has said. Comey, a longtime critic of Trump, has denied that his cryptic, now-deleted Instagram post was a call for an assassination.
On Thursday, Comey posted an image of seashells that formed the number “8647.” He captioned the image with “cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
Trump administration officials and Republican politicians quickly interpreted the image as a threat to the 47th president. Several media outlets cited the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which defines that “86” is a slang term for “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to kill.” According to Newsweek, the number is a mafia term for taking someone “eight miles out of town” and putting them “six feet under.”
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of Trump,” Noem wrote on X. She added that the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service are “investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.” Fox News Digital cited a source in the Secret Service as saying they will send agents to investigate and interview the ex-FBI chief.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau will “provide all necessary support” to the Secret Service in investigating what he said was Comey’s post “directed at President Trump.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich argued that Comey’s post “can clearly be interpreted as ‘a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States.” Donald Trump Jr. claimed that Comey was “casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”
Comey has since taken down the image. “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” he wrote on Instagram. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
Trump fired Comey during his first term in office. He accused the former FBI head of spreading lies about him as part of what he called a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts during his 2024 reelection campaign. In July, a gunman opened fire at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing Trump’s ear with a bullet and killing a spectator. In September, a second would-be assassin was discovered camping outside Trump’s golf course in Florida.
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