Former FBI Director James Comey was questioned by the US Secret Service in Washington, DC, after he uploaded a photo on his Instagram account depicting seashells forming the number “8647,” which was considered a veiled threat against sitting President Trump by Republicans.
In slang, the number 86 means to “cancel” or “get rid of,” and more recently has also come to mean “kill” in law enforcement, while 47, Trump supporters claim, points to the current president, who is the 47th.
Many top Republican officials interpreted Comey’s post as a covered incitement against the life of President Trump and called for his imprisonment.
Speaking on Fox TV, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, accused James Comey of “issuing a hit” on Trump late Thursday, calling for him to be “put behind bars” after posting the photo on social media.
President Trump, who survived two assassination attempts before the recent elections, also commented on the post, telling Fox Special Report that Comey knew what he was doing. “He knew exactly what that meant,” said Trump. “A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”
The former FBI chief removed the photo and replaced it with a new post clarifying that he did not mean to call for violence and did not think the photo would be interpreted that way. He wrote: ”I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folk associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
