James Comey was taking a walk on the beach with his wife when they happened upon a message in the sand: 8647.
According to the former FBI director, his wife initially asked if the cryptic seashell formation was an address. They puzzled over the shells, trying to decipher meaning. His wife, according to Comey’s account, remembered her days as a server in a restaurant, when 86 was the term staff used to remove an item from the menu. Comey mused that when he was younger, kids would say 86 to mean “to ditch a place”.
“I said: ‘That’s really clever,’” Comey recounted, in a Monday interview on MSNBC, describing the events of last week that led him to post a photo of the seashells on Instagram, leading to a firestorm of accusations from Donald Trump allies that he was calling for violence against the president.
“I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it, until I heard through her that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy,” he said. Amid the uproar, Comey deleted the post and issued a statement saying it was not meant as a call for violence.
“Even if I think it’s crazy,” Comey said on MSNBC. “I don’t want to be associated with violence of any kind.”
To “86” is common slang for stopping or getting rid of something, while “47” could be seen as a reference to Trump, the 47th president.
Comey had gone to the beach for a moment of respite before the publication of his forthcoming legal thriller FDR Drive: A Crime Novel. Instead he got a call from the Secret Service, who had opened an investigation into the post.
Comey, who was fired by Trump in his first term, appeared voluntarily at the Washington field office for an interview, after the president insisted there was no innocent reading of the message. “He knew 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.”
In the interview on Monday, Comey appeared nonplussed by the investigation. “It’s not my first rodeo,” he said, noting his tempestuous relationship with Trump which Comey said deteriorated after he rebuffed Trump’s early attempts to secure a pledge of loyalty from the then FBI director. The agency is now led by Kash Patel, whose abiding loyalty has raised urgent questions about the FBI’s independence.
But Comey warned that the episode pointed to a more worrying trend by this administration: “The use of power to aim at individuals, eroding the rule of law.”
His advice to others who may find themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s retribution?
“The rule of law is still our saving grace,” Comey said. “We have a judiciary in this country that will support the truth. Take solace in that. Take prudent steps, but don’t freak out. These people are not good enough for you to be freaked out about. Protect yourself, be measured about the effect the threat has on you, and know that you’re going to be OK.”
