A now-deleted photo of seashells posted on Instagram by the former FBI director James Comey is being investigated by the US Secret Service, after the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said it constituted a “threat” against Donald Trump, and set off warnings from other administration officials.
On Thursday, Comey posted a photo of seashells forming the message “8647”, with a caption that read: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
Trump’s supporters have interpreted the message as an endorsement of violence against Trump, the 47th president, who survived an attempt on his life at a campaign event in Pennsylvania last year.
But the term 86 is a slang term far more often frequently used to mean getting rid of or throwing something out. It is thought to have its roots in the restaurant industry and is used to mean scrapping old equipment or not serving particular customers, as well as in a military context for stopping a mission or plan, often as a synonym for “nix”. Merriam-Webster notes that 86 has very occasionally been used to mean “to kill” but said it did not endorse that meaning “due to its relative recency and sparseness of use”.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service confirmed the agency was “aware of the incident” and said it would “vigorously investigate” any potential threat, but did not offer further details.
Comey later took down his post, saying in a statement that he was unaware of the seashells’ potential meaning and saying that he does not condone violence of any kind.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” Comey said in a statement. “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.”
But the post ignited a firestorm on the right, with Trump loyalists accusing the former FBI director of calling for the president’s assassination, with differing political interpretations of the message.
“Disgraced former FBI director James Comey just called for the assassination of POTUS Trump,” Noem wrote on X. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, said his agency would “provide all necessary support” as part of an investigation headed by the Secret Service.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the presidential security agency, said on social media that the agency investigates anything that could be taken as a threat. “We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI Director & we take rhetoric like this very seriously,” he added.
Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, said she didn’t buy Comey’s explanation that the message carried no greater meaning. Gabbard said Comey had “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 law,” Gabbard posted on X.
Gabbard later told Fox News that Comey was “issuing a hit” on the president and that “the dangerousness of this cannot be underestimated.”
Comey’s cryptic post comes as the former FBI director is about to publish FDR Drive, the third installment of a crime series about a fictional New York lawyer, Nora Carleton. Publisher’s Weekly outlined the plot as centering on a US attorney who tries to bring to justice “a far-right media personality with a popular podcast vilifying those he thinks are destroying America: intellectuals, immigrants, and people of color”.
Comey and Trump have a deeply antagonistic relationship that stretches back to the early days of the first Trump administration, when, according to Comey, Trump sought to secure a pledge of loyalty from the then FBI director, who refused.
In a move that shocked Washington, Trump dismissed Comey, who was leading the criminal investigation into Russian meddling in the US election. Comey later wrote a memoir that recounted the episode, prompting Trump to declare him an “untruthful slime ball”.
Comey has remained a Maga world bete noire, drawing rightwing ire whenever he steps into the political fray.
While President Trump is currently on an international trip to the Middle East, the former FBI Director puts out what can clearly be interpreted as “a hit” on the sitting President of the United States—a message etched in the sand.
— Taylor Budowich (@Taylor47) May 15, 2025
This is deeply concerning to all of us and is… pic.twitter.com/RF0Dl3t1JF
Taylor Budowich, the White House deputy chief of staff, also responded by calling the photo “deeply concerning” and accused Comey of putting out “what can clearly be interpreted as ‘a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States”.
The Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett, a staunch Trump supporter, called for Comey to be jailed. “Arrest Comey,” he wrote on X.
