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The Independent
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
James Comey blames wife for infamous ‘8647' post in Colbert interview
Former FBI head James Comey shed yet more light on his infamous '8647' social media post during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Tuesday night. Comey told Colbert that he was walking on the beach with his wife, Patrice, when they noticed the formation in seashells. Comey's wife asked him, 'Did someone put their address in the sand?' The couple stared for a while before Comey said he realized it was likely a 'clever political message.' He credited his wife with recognizing the term '86' to mean get rid of from her time working as a restaurant server. 'She said, 'You should take a picture of it,' I said, 'Sure.' Then she said, 'You should Instagram that,' and then boom!' he added. Since posting the pic, Comey has drawn swathes of criticism from the MAGA world, including calls for him to be jailed. Comey was appearing on the show to promote his new book, a legal thriller titled FDR Drive. He also confirmed to Colbert that the Secret Service had since called him in for an interview. 'We stood at it — looked at it, trying to figure out what it was, and she had long been a server in restaurants, and she said, 'You know what I think it is? I think it's a reference to restaurants when you would 86 something in a restaurant,' Comey also said. Colbert appeared to understand the reference and clarified, 'Like off the menu?' Comey continued to explain to Colbert that the reference was something he thought it was a 'clever political message,' but said, 'No, I remember when I was a kid, you would say '86' to get out of a place. 'This place stinks, let's 86 it''. The host appeared to understand Comey's explanation and said he was familiar with the term '86' in food settings. 'I was a bartender, you would 86 a customer if they were getting drunk. Like, 'Let's 86 them, give them a low-proof alcohol or something like that,' Colbert said. According to a journal from the American Dialect Society, '86' is a slang term used to signal that a food or drink item is no longer available or that a customer needs to leave. The dictionary site Merriam-Webster also corroborates this understanding as a term used "to throw out,' or 'get rid of'. However, Trump and MAGA have insinuated that the post was a 'threat' to the president's life. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed Comey's post, taking to social media to say: 'We still don't know a single thing about Thomas Crooks, who shot the President. So what's going to happen to James Comey, who just issued a death threat to the President?' Comey was then asked by Colbert what he thought about Trump's decision to pardon or commute over 1,500 January 6 rioters. 'It was an obscenity that will stain this country forever,' Comey said. 'It sends terrible messages in that direction [referring to the prospect of future political violence]. It totally undercuts the deterrent effect of prosecutions. It sends a terrible message to people who might investigate crimes like that'. 'You are not going to get ahead in the FBI by working stuff like that, given what you saw happen with the pardons,' he added. Last week, President Trump responded to Comey's post by drilling down on the accusations that his message 'meant assassination'. Backpedaling on his post, Comey took to Instagram late Thursday evening to defend his actions after deleting the image. '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.' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, confirmed that the DHS and the Secret Service were investigating the post as a 'threat and will respond appropriately."
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
James Comey breaks silence to clarify intent behind '86 47' post
By James Comey (pictured) has placed the blame on his wife for what he called a 'totally innocent' Instagram post that some suggested was a coded message calling for the 'assassination of President Trump.' Comey spoke publicly for the first time since the controversy, claiming his wife not only suggested taking the picture but also informed him that the phrase '86' was related to restaurants. 'We stood over it and I said, I think it's some kind of political message and she said, "86 when I was a server... meant to remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients,"' Comey told MSNBC's Nicole Wallace while mentioning that his wife had worked in restaurants. 'And I said, well, to me, as a kid, it always meant to leave a place, to ditch a place. I said, that's really clever,' he added about the supposedly innocent shell formation. 'So then she said, "You should take a picture of that." And I did, and I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it.' But the innocent beachside snap set off a firestorm. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (pictured suggested Comey be arrested and the Secret Service interview him about the post . The Merriam-Webster dictionary says 86 is slang meaning 'to throw out,' 'to get rid of' or 'to refuse service to.' It notes: 'Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of "to kill." We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.' Numerous Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, asserted that Comey was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president, which he completely dismissed. 'I heard through her that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy. But I took it down. Even if I think it's crazy, I don't want to be associated with violence of any kind,' he said. The long-time Trump antagonist - hated by liberals as well for his reopening of Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal days before the 2016 election - called the Secret Service agents who interviewed him 'total pros.' 'I in the Trump era, I've been investigated a lot, audited a lot, and so it's not my first rodeo. I'm in some strange way, the relationship he can't get over. Maybe because I've lived a happy, productive life since leaving, but this has just been a distraction in that life,' he said. The president - who fired Comey as head of the FBI in his first term - responded to the post himself, referring to Comey as 'a child.' 'I hope people know enough about that particular person that they understand where it's coming from,' Comey said. 'It says something more depressing about the leadership of our current administration. And I just shrug because that's ridiculous.' When asked about it on Friday during a Fox News interview, Trump said: '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. And it says it loud and clear.' He deflected a question on what he thought should happen, saying the decision would be up to Bondi. The post was deleted on Thursday after it was made, with Comey subsequently writing: '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,' the now-crime novelist wrote. Trump was wounded by an assassin's bullet at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, and then almost shot at by another would-be assassin at his West Palm Beach, Florida golf course on September 15, 2024. Trump and Comey have had a fraught relationship dating back nearly a decade. Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed four years earlier by then-President Barack Obama and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush's administration. But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president - an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum. Trump then fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration .
Fox News
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
DAVID MARCUS: James Comey's shell game proves he is poster boy for elitist TDS
Former FBI director, Instagram star, and philosopher poet James Comey is back in the news, folks. And that can only mean one thing: He has found a new way to humiliate himself in the name of hating President Donald Trump. This week, the oafish, disgraced lawman decided to share on social media a picture of seashells on a beach arranged to spell out "86 47." Get it? Eighty-six, or cancel, and forty-seven, Trump, the 47th president. He captioned the picture with the very chill and nonchalant line, "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." Yeah man, like, right on. Within minutes, people not in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome were pointing out that, after two assassination attempts on the president, this looked an awful lot like a threat to kill him, which is technically a crime. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard pulled no punches in the wake of the seaside scandal. "We've already seen assassination attempts," she told Fox News. "I'm very concerned for his life. And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this." Comey's version of events goes something like this: "I was strolling along the beach one day, in the very merry month of May, when much to my surprise, what appeared before my eyes, but an anti-Trump shell display." In a second Instagram post after deleting the photo, Comey played stupid. "I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message," Comey wrote. "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." This smarmy non-apology is "sancti-Comeyous" enough to make your skin crawl. He did nothing wrong, you see. Somehow, Comey knew it wasn't a random four-digit number, and that "47" was political. But heck, "86" could mean anything! And not fully understanding the message, he nonetheless took a picture of it and called it "cool" to millions of people. None of that makes any semblance of sense, especially not for the former head of America's once-hallowed, premier investigative agency. I am willing to believe that Comey has led such a sheltered existence that he's never heard a short-order cook yell, "86 the corned beef hash," but how can someone whose entire career was spent in law enforcement not know that "86" can also mean rubbing somebody out? And by the way, where is this beach, because just a few months ago in October, Comey, ever the avant-garde artist, posted a photo of a blue seashell with the words, "vote Harris," painted on it. Is this some beach where people go to make left-wing political crafts all day? I would really like to know where this beach is so I can make sure I don't accidentally go there. If you'll pardon the phrase, the whole thing is a little fishy. Can I prove Comey or a friend of his made this stupendously stupid seashell stonehenge that threatens Trump at least with being canceled, perhaps with far worse? No, but it doesn't seem implausible, especially given that it's part of a set. Either way, this is a man who was once the most powerful law enforcement officer in the United States who has been reduced to posting like a teenage girl who just discovered Sylvia Plath, and what is so sad and troubling about it is that Comey has made Trump his entire identity. For years, Comey's whole social media feed has been: "Here I am at the beach thinking about Trump, here I am in the forest thinking about Trump, now I am by the lake, and I am thinking about Trump." But it isn't just Trump that Comey is obsessed with, it's also himself, and this is where his bizarre behavior is a symptom of a more widespread disease. He sees himself as the selfless soldier, hero in the history books who stood up to fascism and blah, blah, blah. Those of us who have been paying attention know him as a liar who helped cook up the Russian collusion hoax that tied President Trump's first term up in knots for three years at a cost to taxpayers of $30 million. On Monday, James Comey will be on the Upper East Side of New York on a book tour, signing copies of his new thriller, "FDR Drive." Not that I would ever suggest that has anything to do with this great man of principles' attention-grabbing antics, but it might afford him a chance to explain himself. Everyone at the Barnes & Noble that night will likely hate Trump just as much as Comey does. Many will take pleasure in the "86 47" post, whether it was meant as a threat or not. Will Comey be contrite over his ill-advised post, or will he just wink and sign books? If Comey could look the Trump haters in the eye and say, "You know what? I went too far this week and I learned a lesson," then it could do a lot of good. But don't hold your breath. The next time Comey admits he was at fault for anything involving Trump will be the first.
