The secret service agents interviewed former FBI director James Comey on Friday regarding their social media post “8647” that administration officials described a death threat against President Trump and Comey called a political statement.
“Today, the federal agents of @Secretice interviewed the former director of the FBI, Comey, with respect to a publication of social networks that President Trump requested,” published the secretary of the DHS Kristi Noem on Friday X on Friday. “I will continue to take all the necessary measures to guarantee the protection of @potus Trump. This is an ongoing investigation.”
A Comey lawyer declined to comment.
Comey, a Trump critic for a long time, eliminated the photo, which showed sea congresses arranged in “8647”, in a matter of hours. He said it was a political, not violent message.
“I didn’t realize that some people associate those numbers with violence,” Comey wrote on Instagram. “It never occurred to me, but I oppose the violence of any kind, so I took the post.”
In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Trump said he thinks Comey “knew exactly what he meant.”
“A child knows what that meant … that meant ‘murder’,” Trump said. “And he says high and of course. He was not very competent, but he was competent enough to know what he meant.”
The national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, said Thursday that Comey should be imprisoned.
“I am very worried about the president’s life; we have already seen murder attempts,” Gabbard said in Fox News. “I am very worried about his life and James Comey, in my opinion, must be responsible and put behind bars for this.”
Trump survived two murder attempts during the 2024 campaign. In July, he was injured in the ear in a campaign manifestation in Butler, PA, after an armed man shot him from a nearby roof before being killed by snipers of the Secret Service.
Two months later, a man directed a rifle to Trump’s security details while playing golf in Florida. The man fled, was arrested and accused of trying to kill a presidential candidate.
Meaning of “eighty -six”
The term “eighty-six” is an expression used in restaurants that means “refusing to serve” or “reject or prohibit” a client, “eliminate (an element) of a menu” or “reject, suspend or get rid of (something)”, according to Merriam-Webster. Dates back to the 1930s.
Republican politicians have used “86” in publications on social networks in the past. Last year, former Republican congressman from Florida, Matt Gaetz, published in X: “Now we have been 86: McCarthy McDaniel McConnell, better days for the Republican Party.”
The Tweet referred to the former president of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, the former president of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel and the former leader of the majority of Senator Mitch McConnell, who had left leadership posts in the Republican Party.
On Friday, Gaetz told The Independent that his use of “86” was different from the one of Comey. “I was speaking last time about things that had already happened,” Gaetz said. “Comey was calling for future action. These are different.”
In 2022, conservative activist Jack Posobiec published in X, “86 46”, an apparent reference to Joe Biden, the 46th President. Posobiec did not respond to a request for comments, according to The Independent.
For months, the sequence of numbers 8647 has been used and has been seen in anti-trump t-shirts, buttons and other goods sold on Amazon and Etsy, some are still available for purchase, as well as signaling in “hands outside” protests throughout the country. Amazon and Etsy also sell articles with the terms “8646” in them, referring to Biden.
During Trump’s first term, the numerical sequence was also used. In 2020, Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, was criticized after a pin with the numbers “8645” appeared at a table behind her during a television interview.
At that time, Trump was the 45th president. Whitmer denied that the term meant “murdered.”
After the employees in a restaurant in Virginia asked White House Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave in 2018, employees wrote “86 – Sarah Huckabee Sanders”, in their night note, Politifact reported.
A former federal prosecutor who has investigated cases of multiple threats against government officials said that Comey had not committed a crime. He said that the Federal Criminal Statute prohibits death threats against the president requires that an individual “knowingly and voluntarily” make an explicit threat “to take his life, kidnap or inflict bodily damage.”
The former prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the fear of reprisals, said that Comey’s position does not come to fulfill that legal threshold.
“He did not commit a crime,” said the former prosecutor. “He gave his enemies an openness.”
