America's Talking - Feds Investigating Whether Comey Post Was Threat on Trump

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

(The Center Square) – Federal authorities are investigating whether a message posted on social media by former FBI Director James Comey was meant to be a threat against President Donald Trump. Comey, who was fired by Trump in his first term, posted an image on Instagram Thursday of seashells in the sand spelling the numbers "8647." The number "86" often is used to refer to getting rid of something, including an individual. Trump is the 47th (and 45th) U.S. president. Accompanying the "8647" image was a message Comey captioned the post with: "Cool shell formation on my beach walk…" he wrote.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_03aa7dbe-e695-4f24-a8a2-20631e8d2442.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. In a shocking development late Thursday, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security say they are investigating a social media post from former FBI director James Comey that many consider a veiled threat on President Donald Trump's life. On Instagram, Comey posted a picture of seashells in the sand with a number of the number of numbers 86 and 47. Eighty-six is often used to refer to eliminating something or someone.

Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States. Joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, what do you make all this? Yeah, it's interesting. To me, 86 is back in the waiting table stays when you ran out of a certain ingredient. You had the 86 from the menu. Of course, there's some kind of ambiguity on what 86 means, could it just mean impeach Trump? Could it mean, you know, neutralized and politically somehow? You know, Comey received a lot of blowback and a lot of people said this was a call for violence. There's a lot in the Trump camp and on the Trump side who have a very low tolerance for this kind of thing from the left because they feel falsely accused of inciting violence because of January 6th, they feel like the President Trump was falsely accused of inciting a riot. when they think he didn't really do that. They think all the January 6 people basically were led

into the Capitol by Capitol Police and then accused of like some kind of great act of grave violence. And so anytime the left or anyone perceived as a Democrat or the left does anything, they're very quick to jump on it because they feel like a very harsh standard was applied to them on January 6th. So I think that's what you're seeing here. Comey, of course, is really, I think actually kind of hated by the left and the right. a lot of, you know, a lot on the right, dislike him because he, of his role and kind of the debunked investigations into President Trump. But a lot of Democrats don't like him either because they feel like he handed the election to Trump. You remember James Comey in 2016, went out there and did a press conference right before election day and kind of, uh, gay, suggested that maybe Hillary Clinton

did do something wrong or there was more this investigation in a really bad time for her. And I think a lot in the Hillary, people in Hillary Clinton can't blame Comey. So Comey doesn't have a lot of friends left. He made this post, probably a bad, you know, a lack of judgment for someone in his position. He took a lot of blowback. And then he posted on a follow-up post and he said that basically he didn't think of it as violent. He took the post down and he said, I saw it as just like a political message that I stumbled upon and I would never call for violence. So that's kind of where it landed. But I think, you know, I was trying to give some explanation for why people were so quick and so, um, you may be unforgiving for Comey's lapse in judgment. And, and, and, and, and, and these

highly charged times of political rhetoric where Republicans have accused democratically, you remember, you had Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker referencing Nazis like six times in his state of the state address earlier this year and in reference to Trump. President Trump, when he was on the campaign trail last year in Butler, Pennsylvania. A sniper got on a roof and attempted assassin. Fired off several shots, including grazing then former president Trump's ear and killing someone who was in attendance in the audience. And then you had the incident at the golf course where another would-be assassin

lined up on the golf course near where Trump was playing. Thankfully, it was shwarted by the Secret Service then. And now you've got a former FBI director posting something, even if that's not what he intended. You would just think you'd be more careful with your rhetoric in these highly charged times. Right. Yeah, of course. A big laughs and judgment. And I think I'm glad you brought up the Nazi thing because if you scour kind of the dark underbelly of Twitter and different places in the Internet where political discourse is happening the way I do,

the reason the Nazi comparison is so relevant to this conversation about violence is because there's, I mean, actually, before Trump, there's sort of this ongoing philosophical and moral question and debate of, you know, would violence against Nazis be okay, basically? You've even heard the joke, it's sort of a joke, but not always a joke about if you could kill baby Hitler, would you do it? Right. And that was kind of like a philosophical question. would it be right to kill baby Hitler? He's a baby, he's innocent, so it's wrong, but also you could save the lives of millions of people. He did it right.

And that's kind of like a common online philosophical debate. And it's relevant because then it's kind of grown into this idea of punching Nazis is okay. You see a lot of rhetoric along that. And the point I'm making is that the Nazi issue is important because if you can actually say that one party or one group of people are truly Nazi, then you can, in the minds of many people, you can justify violence against them. Because you make a comparison to War II, and a lot of people say that they would have fought the Nazis or they, you know, it would have been okay to assassinate Hitler or different things. And so if you can equate Trump or, you know, the way they tried to say that Musk was doing a Nazi salute, that's why that battle is so intense, because the Nazi comparisons are tied to the violence in a unique way. And so I think that's why you're seeing such reaction for Republicans.

I think the Nazi comparisons are often very lazy. To me, it reveals that people don't know any other time period in history than the World War II movies they watched. There's a lot of political movements in history. There's a lot of villains of history. There's a lot of dictators of history. And if all people could come up with this, the Nazis and Hitler, I think it's a sign of kind of a historical ignorance. There's a lot of things about the modern Republican Party and Trump that are just, completely opposite. But, you know, that's why the Nazi thing is important. Does it justify violence?

I'm hopeful that we can tone down the rhetoric and also just move to a point where we feel like calls for violence are so ridiculous and uncalled for that they're immediately shut down the way that this Comey one was. Yeah, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noam responded late Thursday saying the Secret Service was going to investigate. They are taking it seriously current FBI. Director Patel also said the FBI was ready to assist in any investigations. So it looks like they're going to be questioning Comey at a minimum over the post. Just to close out, I do want to read Comey's complete statement after he took the post down. Looking for that. Now, here it is.

I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assume 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. Final words, Casey. Yeah, I mean, the reason you're, I think we can agree. We don't want the violence. The reason you're seeing such animus in the Trump camp also, besides what we've already discussed,

is there's this feeling and this hope that Trump is going to put a lot of these high ranking officials who they see is corrupt in jail. And so that's why you're seeing this kind of like more rabid calls. for investigation, for, there's a lot of people who still want to lock up Hillary, lock up Comey, lock up a lot of these top-ranking Democrat officials who they see is very corrupt. Lockup Pelosi for allegedly insider trading, all the stuff. And so far, Trump hasn't done that. So anytime one of these guys steps out of line, it reignites that fervor, that call for justice and to root out the corruption that Trump, you know, spoke so much of on the campaign trail. I don't think this is going to get to that point. I think that the Trump administration and Trump's

allies are sending a message to Comey. that we do have the power. We have the power to investigate you and force you to come in. So get back in line and cut this stuff out. Thank you for joining us today. Casey, listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.