Former FBI director James Comey. Law enforcement tailed his car and tracked his cellphone, steps usually reserved for serious threats. Photo / Monica Jorge, the New York Times
The Secret Service had former FBI Director James Comey followed by law enforcement authorities in unmarked cars and street clothes and tracked the location of his cellphone the day after he posted an image on social media in May.
United States President Donald Trump’s allies said the image amounted to a threat to assassinate the president, according to three government officials.
Comey and his wife, Patrice, were tailed by authorities as they drove from the North Carolina coast, where they had been on holiday, through Virginia to their home in the Washington area, the officials said, describing the details of the surveillance on condition of anonymity.
At the same time, the Secret Service was receiving information showing the location of Comey’s phone while federal authorities were stationed at his home waiting for him to return, the officials said.
The intense surveillance occurred a day after Comey, long perceived by Trump as an enemy, had posted a photo on social media of seashells he said he had found while walking on the beach.
They were arranged in the formation “86 47”, combining a slang term meaning to dismiss or remove with the numerical designation of Trump’s second presidency.
Trump critics have often displayed the phrase on signs and clothing at protests.
T-shirts saying both “86 47”, referring to Trump, and “86 46”, referring to former President Joe Biden, are available for sale on Amazon.
Shortly after the image was posted, Donald Trump jnr wrote on social media that Comey was “casually calling for my dad to be murdered”.
The accusation created a firestorm online, as Trump’s supporters accused Comey of plotting to assassinate the president.
When Comey learned of the uproar, he deleted the post, said he did not know that it had a violent connotation and that he opposed violence of any kind.
The Secret Service interviewed him by phone that evening, and Comey said he had no intent to cause the President harm.
Typically, that would have been the extent of an investigation into someone like Comey, who has no violent history and previously led the federal government’s foremost law enforcement agency, according to former Secret Service officials, because there was more than enough to establish that Comey was not an imminent threat.
Instead, the Secret Service responded by deploying physical and digital surveillance that the former officials said would typically be used for someone who was an active threat to a person under agency protection.
It is unclear whether Comey’s car was tailed by Secret Service personnel, other federal agents, or local law enforcement officials in the areas of North Carolina and Virginia that the Comeys drove through.
To justify following Comey, the Secret Service cited “exigent” circumstances, according to two of the government officials, using a term that in law enforcement means a pressing need to take immediate action.
It is unclear what those exigent circumstances were. At the time, Trump was traveling in the Middle East.
The Secret Service has been under intense scrutiny over the past year because of two attempts to assassinate Trump.
In one of those, during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, he was shot at by a gunman. It was the first assassination attempt against a former or sitting president since 1981.
Even so, Barbara McQuade, a former US Attorney, said the decision to follow Comey was “huge overkill”.
“The only rational basis for this action that I can think of is that someone said to themselves, ‘We’ve got him, we are going to punish him for this mistake,’” McQuade said.
“It almost seems like someone was exploiting the opportunity to exact retribution against one of President Trump’s enemies.”
The Secret Service declined to comment.
Comey has not been charged with a crime, and the status of the inquiry into his actions is unclear. The Justice Department did not respond to a question about whether the investigation is ongoing.
A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation, said that the Secret Service had launched the inquiry on its own and that it had not been requested by the White House.
A representative for Comey declined to comment.
At the time Comey took down the post, there was a chorus of calls by Trump and his allies to have Comey investigated.
That night, the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, said Comey had “just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump”.
“DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” she said.
Later that night, Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, went on Fox News and said: “James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this”.
The following day, Trump said on Fox News that Comey “knew exactly what that meant” and that “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.
Although the Secret Service had interviewed Comey on the phone soon after the uproar began, the agency insisted on interviewing him again the following day — this time in person, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.
While the Comeys drove back to their home, his lawyers negotiated the terms of the interview with the top lawyer for the Secret Service.
When Comey arrived home, he was met by Secret Service personnel who drove him into Washington, where he was questioned.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, amid the FBI’s investigation into whether Trump’s advisers had colluded with the Russian Government to help him win the 2016 presidential election.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly called for his prosecution and called him a traitor and a leaker.
Comey now appears to be under scrutiny for his handling of the inquiry into the 2016 presidential campaign. The Administration is also examining the role of John Brennan, the former CIA director.
During his first term, Trump pressured the Justice Department to indict him and privately told one of his White House chiefs of staff that he wanted to “get the IRS on” Comey.
Amid Trump’s attempts to have Comey prosecuted, he has been investigated for leaking classified information, and a special counsel examined how he had handled the Russia and Clinton email investigations.
Comey was later the subject of a highly unusual and invasive audit by the IRS.
Legally, there are few limits on the power of federal agents to follow someone around in public.
No court order is required because people are generally considered to have no expectation of privacy when they are in public.
The agency investigated “86 46” posts during the Biden Administration, but none drew the law enforcement response used in Comey’s case, according to current and former Secret Service officials.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Michael S. Schmidt and Eileen Sullivan
Photograph by: Monica Jorge
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