Secret Service agents reportedly escorted former FBI Director James Comey to their Washington, D.C., field office on Friday for an interview, after Donald Trump accused the ex-official of making an assassination threat against him in a social media post from the previous day.
Comey appeared for the interview voluntarily and is not in custody, law enforcement sources told CNN.
The Independent has contacted the Secret Service and a representative for Comey for comment.
On Thursday, Comey posted then took down an image of seashells he saw on a beach spelling out “8647.”
Trump officials have argued the message was a coded threat calling for someone to “86,” or eliminate, Trump, the 47th president.
“He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant,” Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier in an interview on Friday. “If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant ‘assassination.’ It says that loud and clear.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard demanded on Thursday that Comey be put in prison.
“We’ve already seen assassination attempts. I’m very concerned for his life and James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this,” she told on Fox News.
Comey has denied any violent intent behind his post.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” he wrote in a statement on Instagram on Thursday. “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.”
During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump faced multiple assassination threats, including one that nearly killed the then-candidate, when a bullet grazed his ear in Pennsylvania.
The Trump administration itself has also been accused of threatening rhetoric about public officials, especially judges it disagrees with.
The president has called a judge who scrutinized his deportation flights to El Salvador a “Radical Left Lunatic” who didn’t have the legitimacy to rule on immigration, while Elon Musk has compared judges to “gavel-wielding dictators.”
Judges say they’ve seen a spike in threats after being involved in Trump-related cases.
