The Secret Service has interviewed former FBI Director James Comey about a social media post critics have said was tantamount to a call to assassinate President Donald Trump, according to multiple media reports.
In a Friday evening post on social media platform X, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin wrote, “Comey met with the U.S. Secret Service in DC this afternoon, where he was interviewed about his now deleted ‘8647’ seashell post.
“He was not arrested, it was a standard interview where he was given a chance to explain himself,” Melugin wrote.
“No details yet on what he said,” he posted.
The New York Times reported that Comey was interviewed at an office in Washington belonging to the Secret Service.
The report said Secret Service agents drove Comey to the interview, to which the Times said Comey voluntarily consented.
The Washington Post said the 5:30 p.m. interview was considered “standard practice” after a threat has been issued.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has jurisdiction over the Secret Service, had promised Comey would be grilled about the post.
Comey posted on Instagram and then deleted an arrangement of seashells that read “8647.”
Should James Comey be arrested?
Because 86 is a slang term for getting rid of someone — something Comey has claimed he did not know — the post was widely read as a call for removing Trump from office — or for him to be assassinated. Comey has said he was not intending to send that message.
“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” Comey claimed in a follow-up post. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
Trump fired Comey during his first term, leading the former FBI chief to become a vocal anti-Trump figure.
Trump said he does not buy Comey’s explanation.
“He knew 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,” Trump said, according to ABC News.
Trump said Comey “apologized because he was hit — he’s a very bad guy.”
“The Secret Service vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees,” Secret Service representative Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement, according to CNN.
“We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI director and we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters,” he said.
James Comey just issued a call to action to murder the President of the United States.
As a former FBI Director and someone who spent most of his career prosecuting mobsters and gangsters, he knew exactly what he was doing and must be held accountable under the full force of the… pic.twitter.com/zvbu5Vf0zg
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) May 16, 2025
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has accused Comey of “issuing a hit” on Trump, according to the Post.
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