Ex-FBI chief charged over 8647 photo that ‘threatened Trump’s life’
Former FBI director James Comey has been indicted for ‘threatening’ Donald Trump with a photo of seashells spelling out ‘8647’.
It is the second criminal case the US Justice Department has brought against the long-time Trump foe, who said he assumed the arrangement of shells he saw on a walk was a political message, not a call to violence.
Comey is among multiple enemies of the Republican president to come under scrutiny by the Justice Department over the last year.
The picture was accompanied by a seemingly innocent caption, ‘Cool shell formation on my beach walk.’
But the former FBI chief was interviewed by the US Secret Service in May after Trump administration officials claimed that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ’86’ as slang meaning ‘to throw out, to get rid of or to refuse service to’.
It added: ‘Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill’. We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.’
Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: ‘I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence… I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down.’
Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview, accused Comey of knowing ‘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. And it says it loud and clear,’ he said.
The fact that the US Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed will likely spark defence claims that the Trump administration is going out of its way to target Comey.
Comey oversaw the early months of an investigation into whether the Republican president’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.
The former FBI director was indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed the US Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorised inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist.
He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed by a judge.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign.
That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.
The department, for instance, is also pursuing a criminal investigation into former CIA director John Brennan, another key figure in the Russia investigation – one of Mr Trump’s chief grievances and a saga that he and his supporters have long sought retaliation for.
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