Former FBI director James Comey, who portrayed the photo of him testifying remotely at a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, has been shot by conservatives for a social media post that was interpreted as a threat to Trump’s life.
Stefani Reynolds/AP/Pool Bloomberg
Hide captions
Toggle caption
Stefani Reynolds/AP/Pool Bloomberg
The Trump administration is investigating former FBI director James Comey about a social media post that some Trump’s officials and supporters interpret as a threat to the president.
On Thursday, Comey shared a photo on Instagram of Seashells on the beach placed on the number “8647.” The caption read, “A cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
“86” is a Slang Terminology It means “getting it off,” and Trump is the 47th (and 45th) president of the United States. According to Merriam-WebsterThe most common meaning of 86, which has roots in the service industry, is “throwing away” or “rejecting services” to customers. The dictionary points out that the term has also come to mean “killing.” However, the dictionary states that it does not include this meaning in the official entry “due to relative up-to-dateness and sparse usage.”
The Post sparked a stir among some Republicans who suggested Comey was threatening the president. Donald Trump Jr. I blamed him “I want my dad to be murdered.”
However, Comey, who deleted the photo within hours, said she thought the shells were a “political message” and not violent. It is unknown who created the shell formation.
Comey has been an outspoken critic of Trump since leading the FBI during his first term as president. Trump fired Comey in 2017 after a 10-year term in 2017 as he oversaw an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“I didn’t realize I was linking those numbers to violence,” Comey said. I wrote it on Instagram. “It never happened to me, but I’m against all sorts of violence, so I took down the post.”
Several Republican politicians are asking Comey to face consequences from investigation In Arrest. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced It was late Thursday that her department and Secret Services would “investigate this threat and respond appropriately.” NPR has reached out to Comey for comment and did not receive a response prior to the release of the story.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told NPR on Friday that the agency was aware of Comey’s post and was “very serious about rhetoric like this.”
“The Secret Service is actively investigating what we can consider as a potential threat to our parents,” Gullielmi said.
Some Republicans, including director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, say they don’t think Comey is unaware of the violent implications of the term.
“I’m very concerned about the president’s life. We’ve already seen an attempt to assassinate him,” Gabbard said. He told Fox News Thursday. “I am very concerned about his life and James Comey, in my view, should be accountable and be placed behind the bar for this.”
Trump then survived two assassination attempts while running for reelection last year.
He was injured in a shooting at a campaign rally in July in Pennsylvania. In September, a man trained his rifle with presidential security details when he played golf in Florida, but escaped after being discovered. Man Ryan Rouse, who was charged with attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, pleaded not guilty — on Thursday asked a judge to dismiss some of the charges against him.
Friday, Trump He told Fox News He thinks Comey “knowed exactly what he meant.”
“Children know what it means. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know…it means “assassination,” Trump said in a clip in an interview that airs Friday night. “And I say it loudly and clearly. He wasn’t very capable, but he was well equipped to know what it meant.”
’86’ has appeared in politics previously
This is not the first time that “86” has caused a stir in American politics.
It appears to have been transferred to a political dictionary in 2018. It was in 2018 when Sarah Huckabee Sanders (then secretary of the Trump administration) was kicked out of a Virginia restaurant. The restaurant’s closing staff wrote “86 Sarah Huckabee Sanders.” Their notes The photo went viral to my morning manager.
In October 2020, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Democrats conducted a Zoom interview Meet the press A pin of “8645” was seen behind her, urging some Republicans to wonder if she was sending pointy or violent messages.
Detroit News It was reported at the time Whitmer’s team said the Trump campaign’s response was proof that none of the campaign worked in the restaurant industry.
Anne Karzan, a linguist at the University of Michigan; I told the public in Michigan The most accurate meaning of the term was thought to have been the same as the Huckabee Sanders incident.
“That could mean they were fired and they were asked to leave without any use for them,” she said. “That’s what it means, and it’s related to “8645.” ”
The “8647” slogan quietly became a code to oppose Trump. In Tiktok Posts etc. Signs of protest Over the last few months.
Online Publications Distractify has been reported In March, people use it and mean they don’t want Trump to be president.
“The message is vague about how these people want to do that, but the point is to show Trump that you don’t want to be in the White House,” it said.
Senator Mike Lee of Utah I retweeted the photo One such indication in the anti-Trump protest in April is that “all Americans should condemn this.”
he He criticized Comey’s post “Too close to the house — and it happened too much after two serious, almost successful assassination attempts… dismissed as a joke or harmless exaggeration.”
Some liberals look at double standards
Products with “8647” engraved from shirts and hats to bumper stickers and pins are provided by vendors on sites such as Amazon and Etsy. However, there is also an item called “8646”. This is a reference to former President Joe Biden.
NPR contacted Amazon and Etsy to ask if these items violated the seller’s policy, which prohibits items that praise violence.
Some liberal critics on social media say Republicans don’t seem to have any issues when the same slogan, or even violent rhetoric, targets the Democratic president.
They point to examples of violent rhetoric by the President and his allies. 2024 True Social Posts Video of a truck driving on the highway shows Biden images tied to his back. 2021, the range of those days. R-Ariz. Paul Gozard was criticized after sharing an animated video of himself killing Swing Sword with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Biden.
And some have found examples of prominent conservatives over the years using the “86” slogan. 2022 Tweet Reading: “86 46” 2024, the range of that time. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. , I used this term To explain Republicans who were excluded from jobs that did not cause any significant controversy at the time.
