FBI Director Kash Patel noted in a social media post on Thursday that federal agencies were looking into a since-deleted tweet from former Director James Comey that many took as a threat against President Donald Trump’s life.
“We are aware of the recent social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump. We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran. Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” Patel tweeted.
Comey posted a photo of what appeared to be seashells arranged to form two numbers “86 47” — which many took as a call to assassinate Trump, the 47th president. “86” is slang for a “hit.” In the post he also wrote, “cool shell formation on my beachwalk.”
Later, the former FBI director fired by Trump early in his first term for malfeasance on the job posted another message to X claiming he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.”
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Trump was asked about the post in an interview with Fox News in which he criticized Comey for claiming ignorance.
“He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant? That meant assassination,” Trump said. “He wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees the Secret Service, posted on X: “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that what Comey posted was a threat that should land him in jail.
“Are you buying that the former FBI Director didn’t know what ’86 Trump’ meant?” host Jesse Watters asked.
“Absolutely not, Jesse,” Gabbard replied. “That is a ridiculous and insane statement to make, certainly within this context, but especially coming from a guy who’s the former Director of the FBI, a guy who spent most of his career prosecuting mobsters and gangsters, people who know and execute other humans and use this exact lingo of 86.
“Comey himself admitted in his follow-on message that he knew that this was a political statement. Well, the only reason he knew that, Jesse, was because a little over a month ago, a bunch of anti-Trump, anti-Elon Musk protesters were proliferating the use of this 86-47 slogan, which was a veiled call to action to murder the sitting President of the United States,” she continued.
“So for Comey to think that we, the American people, are so stupid as to think that he, as a former FBI Director, former prosecutor, and someone who clearly pays attention to what’s going on, would believe his lie that he didn’t know what this actually was calling for, the dangerousness of this, Jesse, cannot be underestimated,” Gabbard said.
“When we have two assassination attempts on the president’s life, when we have people who look to guys like Comey, who’ve been celebrated by MSNBC and the Democrat elite and CNN as the beacon of integrity, the law and order guy, the guy who would tell the truth no matter what the consequences, this is the guy who’s issuing a hit on President Trump, the president that the American people voted for,” she noted.