To many, James Comey will be remembered as the FBI director who decided to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, effectively needing her campaign.
Now, however, James is back in the news after Donald Trump’s administration revealed they are investigating him over a social media post that has been accused of being a threat of assasination.
On Thursday May 15 the 64-year-old shared a picture on Instagram of seashells on a beach arranged into the numbers “8647”.
The caption read: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
“Eighty-six” is a slang term that means “”throw out,” “get rid of,” or “refuse service to,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. However, “86” also allegedly means “kill” in new internet slang, which has led to many right-wing influencers claiming Comey has called for the assasination of the President.
Trump is the 47th American President.
© Getty ImagesComey will now reportedly be interviewed by agents investigating a social media post.He later deleted the post and told followers that he “had 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.
© AFP via Getty ImagesReturn to college
The news has put Comey back in the spotlight several years after he was fired from his role by Trump, months after his inauguration in 2017.
He has been putting his focus on his own endeavors in recent years, including giving lectures and convocation speeches. His first speech was at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C.,and in 2018 Comey returned to his alma mater, the College of William & Mary, to teach a course on ethical leadership.
The college later hired him as an executive professor in education, a non-tenured position at the College.
Author
© AFP via Getty ImagesComey’s first book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership, was released in April 2018, a year after he was fired. The book focused on ethics and leadership as well as Comey’s relationship with President Trump.
In the weeks before it’s release Trump took to social media to lash out at the author.
“Comey knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!” claimed Trump, to which Comey responded: “Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.”
His second book, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust, was released in 2021.He has also ventured into fiction writing, publishing two thrillers, Central Park West, and Westport
Foster parents
© CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagComey met his wife, Patrice, when they were students at the College of William and Mary.
They married in 1987 and are the parents of five children including a son who tragically died in infancy. For four decades they have also been foster parents.
TV series
In 2020, his tenure as the FBI director was depicted in the Showtime TV mini-series The Comey Rule; Jeff Daniels portrayed Comey.
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