(Headline USA) Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on Tuesday in an investigation over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and confirmed the indictment to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The charge or charges against Comey were not immediately known.
Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service in May after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. Comey deleted the post that read “86 47” shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment Tuesday.
Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “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.”
Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant.”
“A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”
The former FBI director was recently indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorized inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist. He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed.
Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into alleged 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.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
