Comey under investigation for ‘threat’ to Trump on social media, officials say

• Trump officials are investigating James Comey for allegedly threatening Donald Trump with a seashell post.
• Comey denies advocating violence, stating he misunderstood the potential interpretation of “86 47”.
• Legal experts argue the post is protected speech, with no basis for a threat investigation.

Trump administration officials have said they would investigate former FBI director James B. Comey, whom they accused of threatening President Donald Trump after Comey posted a picture of seashells on a beach arranged to spell out “86 47.”

Trump is the 47th President; “86” can mean banning or removing someone, but it can also be slang for killing a person.

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey wrote in the original Instagram post, which he quickly removed after claims that the phrase communicated the threat of violence. In a follow-up post, Comey wrote that he assumed the shells he saw “were a political message” but said he was not advocating violence.

Trump insisted in a TV interview that Comey “knew exactly” what it meant.

Former FBI director James B. Comey is under investigation for a "threat" to Donald Trump on social media, according to officials. Photo / The Washington Post

“If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination,” Trump told Fox News in an interview scheduled to air on Friday evening (local time). “And it says it loud and clear.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem also accused Comey of calling for Trump’s assassination, writing on X on Thursday that her department and the Secret Service were “investigating this threat and will respond appropriately”. FBI director Kash Patel said his agency would “provide all necessary support” as part of the investigation.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Fox News that she believes Comey should be in jail because of the post and accused him of “issuing a hit” on Trump.

Asked what he wanted to happen to Comey, Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier it was up to “Pam and all of the great people”, referring to Attorney-General Pam Bondi.

It is the job of the Secret Service, which is part of DHS, to explore potential threats to the President, but in general such inquiries are launched only when a person is believed to be actively threatening harm.

David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, said there is “absolutely no basis” to investigate Comey for allegedly threatening Trump’s life. The Supreme Court has set a “very high standard” in such cases, Cole added, and there is “no way in the world that a photo of this beach arrangement constitutes that”.

“Anyone who has studied any First Amendment law would realise this was protected speech,” said Cole, the former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. ”It might not have been the most discreet or professional post, but it’s 100% protected. If anyone should understand the value of indiscreet and irresponsible but nonetheless protected posts on social media, it’s Donald Trump.”

Used as a verb, “86” originated in hospitality, meaning to refuse service to a customer or that a menu item was not available, and its use expanded over time to broadly refer to rejecting, dismissing or removing, according to its dictionary definition. It can also refer to killing something or someone.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence,” Comey said in his follow-up post. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

A spokesman for the Secret Service, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a social media statement that the agency investigates anything that could be taken as a threat. “We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director & we take rhetoric like this very seriously,” he added.

Comey, who began as FBI director under President Barack Obama, has long had a contentious relationship with Trump.

Trump ousted Comey in 2017 as he was leading a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether associates of Trump may have coordinated with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. Around the time of his firing, Trump accused Comey of giving Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, “a free pass for many bad deeds” when he decided not to recommend criminal charges over her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

Neither investigation led to charges. The probes made Comey unpopular in both parties, although Trump and his allies in Congress continued to target Comey long after his ouster, scrutinising his conduct around the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Justice Department in 2019 declined to prosecute Comey over his handling of memos that documented his interactions with Trump, although the FBI inspector general criticised Comey for his actions and said he violated agency policy.

On social media, Trump has bashed Comey as a “DIRTY COP” and “Leakin’ Lyin’ James B. Comey”. He revived those attacks in the interview with Fox News, suggesting the administration officials probing Comey’s seashell post should consider his past as a “dirty cop”.

“If he had a clean history, I could understand if there was a leniency, but I’m going to let them make that decision,” Trump said.

In 2019, Comey was among the former FBI officials Trump accused of treason – a crime punishable by death in the US legal code.

Trump has also been accused of violent rhetoric. In 2023, in reference to calls to Chinese officials by General Mark A. Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”

In an interview with Tucker Carlson in November, Trump said of former congresswoman Liz Cheney, whom he called a war hawk: “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

During his 2016 campaign, he said that if Clinton were in a position to appoint judges, there is “nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know”.

And during the 2024 election, Trump shared a video on social media that showed a supporter’s pickup truck driving down a road with a graphic on its tailgate that depicted President Joe Biden tied up. In response, Biden’s campaign accused Trump of “regularly inciting political violence”.

At least one other well-known Republican official has used the term “86” before. In February 2024, Republican Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) boasted on X that his political allies had “86’d” three party leaders in recent months. He was responding to the news that Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell would step down from his leadership post in November of that year.

In 2022, the far-right activist Jack Posobiec wrote an X post that said only, “86 46.” Biden was serving as the 46th President at the time. Posobiec is a vocal Trump supporter who has been promoted by Trump on social media and invited to participate in a “new media” briefing at the White House during his second term.

Republicans previously singled out Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) with allegations of violent rhetoric after he said in 2020 that two Supreme Court justices would “pay the price” if they voted to restrict abortion rights. Chief Justice John G. Roberts jnr issued a rare rebuke of Schumer over the language, and Schumer later admitted he “should not have used the words I used”.

Ed Martin, Trump’s former interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, had planned to investigate Schumer over the incident after Martin took office this year. But the Washington Post reported in March that Martin had abandoned the probe, finding it unfounded.

Maegan Vazquez is a politics breaking news reporter. Frances Vinall is a global breaking news reporter for The Washington Post.