A former FBI director is in trouble for allegedly issuing a clarion call for the assassination of the president using a photo of seashells. James Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in 2017, posted a picture of seashells organized into the numbers “8647,” with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced afterward that DHS and the Secret Service are “investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich accused Comey of putting out “’a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States.”
The government suspects the number “86” may be code for murder, while “47” refers to President Trump, who is the 47th president. Trump survived two known assassination attempts just months before he was reelected.
But this isn’t the first time this combination of numbers has been used. Left-wing protesters have held up signs with “8647,” which may have been generally interpreted more as a call to oust Trump from office rather than to have him killed. There are “8647” T-shirts being sold on Amazon. These numbers were even applied Joe Biden when he was president, and there are “8646” T-shirts being sold online.
After his post stirred a whirlwind of backlash, Comey deleted it and denied that he was calling for violence, saying:
I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.
History of Lying
Whatever his true intentions are in this case, Comey is no stranger to lying. As TNA’s William F. Jasper noted in 2018:
During televised testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in May, 2017, Committee Chairman Charles Grassley asked Comey if he had ever leaked information. Comey’s immediate reply: “Never!” … Later, however, before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey admitted that he had leaked a memo of his privileged conversation with President Trump.
Jasper went on to write that Comey not only lied about leaking, but leaked “at least four times.”
Trump fired Comey because he failed to do his job and prosecute Hillary Clinton for the reckless, and possibly subversive, way she handled classified emails. Comey admitted she was “extremely careless,” but recommended no charges. In his book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, we learn he made this decision because he thought she would win. He said:
It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls. But I don’t know.
If Comey’s explanation for his seashell social media post is genuine, the American people should be relieved that the only FBI agent who doesn’t know what “86” means is no longer on the job. Nevertheless, the only certainty in this equation is that James Comey has a history of unethical behavior.
