James Comey Under Investigation Over Seashell Photo Allegedly Targeting Donald Trump

Washington, D.C. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service are looking into a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey that some U.S. officials saw as asking for the death of President Donald Trump.

It was taken down, but Comey posted a picture on Instagram of what he called a “shell formation” on the beach that looked like the numbers “8647.”  Officials in the administration, Republican lawmakers, and Trump supporters all spoke out against the post right away, saying it was clearly aimed at Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.

 The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that “eighty-six” can also mean “to get rid of.”

 “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” Noem wrote.  “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

 “The Secret Service, which is part of DHS, said in a statement that the agency “vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees.”

“We know about the former FBI director’s posts on social media, and we take these kinds of comments very seriously.”  The agency’s head of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a statement, “We do not comment on protective intelligence matters other than that.”

 “Taylor Budowich, who is the deputy chief of staff at the White House, said that james Comey put out “what can clearly be interpreted as a hit on the sitting president of the United States.”

 “He wrote on X, “This worries all of us a great deal and is being taken very seriously.”

 Comey was accused by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, of “causally calling for my dad to be murdered.”

 Comey said in a statement that he didn’t know anyone connected his post’s specific number order with violence. He denied that it was a threat.

 “I had no idea that some people linked it to violence.”  “That didn’t occur to me when I saw it, but I’m always against violence, so I took it down,” he said.

 After the fact, james Comey wrote on Instagram that he thought the numbers “were a political message.”

 The phrase “eighty-six” has been used in politics before. For example, Trump’s former pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, used it last year in a post listing Republicans with whom he has had disagreements in the past.

 Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., wanted james Comey to be arrested, and Chris LaCivita, who used to run Trump’s campaign, said he would have had Comey’s house searched over the post.

 Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, said that the agency is ready to “provide all necessary support” to the Secret Service, which is in charge of the investigation.

 An “immediate” joint review into james Comey’s job was called for by Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., in a letter to Patel and Secret Service Director Sean Curran on Thursday night.

 When Trump fired Comey in May 2017, he was only four years into a ten-year term.

 The FBI began looking into claims that members of Trump’s 2016 campaign had touch with Russian entities while Comey was in charge.  Trump fired Comey months after the investigation became public, and he made it sound like the investigation was one of the reasons he fired Comey.

 The White House said at the time that james Comey was fired because top Justice Department officials thought he botched an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Clinton was the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016.

During the 2024 presidential race, there were two attempts to kill Trump.  The first was at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a shooter shot Trump in the ear.  The gunman killed Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, and hurt two others at the July gathering. The Secret Service shot and killed the gunman.

 After a few months, the Secret Service stopped a second attempt to kill Trump at a golf course near his Mar-a-Lago home after an agent saw a man with a gun outside the property.

The person who is thought to have done it is facing multiple federal and state charges, including trying to kill a major presidential candidate, having a gun to commit a violent crime, and attacking a federal cop.  He has said he is not guilty of everything.

 In the past few years, both Democrats and Republicans have been angry at james Comey.  Democrats made fun of his decision to say in public a few days before the 2016 election that an investigation into Clinton’s use of emails had been reopened. In 2017, Clinton herself said that the statement helped Trump win.

If any new information is announced about James Comey , we will be sure to share it with you.