Former FBI Director James Comey is a longtime critic of US President Donald Trump, and testified against him in 2020.
Published On 26 Sep 202526 Sep 2025
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Former FBI Director James Comey says he is innocent of criminal charges following his indictment by a United States court for allegedly making false statements and obstruction of justice.
“My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I am innocent, so let’s have a trial and keep the faith,” Comey said in a video posted on Instagram on Thursday evening in the US.
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The charges against Comey stem from his 2020 statement to the US Senate Judiciary Committee that he did not authorise the FBI to leak information about an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017 until he was fired by Trump shortly into his first term in office.
Since then, he has become a well-known critic of the US President.
Trump wrote a celebratory post on Truth Social following news of the ex-FBI chief’s indictment.
“JUSTICE FOR AMERICA!” Trump wrote on Thursday evening in the US.
“One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former Corrupt Head of the FBI,” the US President wrote.
The charges against Comey mark the first time that Trump has secured an indictment against one of his many high-profile critics.
On Saturday, Trump urged US Attorney General Pam Bondi to level charges against Comey as well as California Senator Adam B Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James in a post on Truth Social.
US president attacks John Brennan and James Comey amid reports two men are under investigation over Trump-Russia probe.
United States President Donald Trump has suggested that former CIA director John Brennan and ex-FBI chief James Comey may have to “pay a price” amid reports that the two men are under criminal investigation.
Asked about reports on Wednesday that Brennan and Comey are being investigated by the FBI, Trump said he did not know anything other than what he had read in the news, but he viewed both as “very dishonest people”.
“I think they’re crooked as hell and maybe they have to pay a price for that,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with African leaders at the White House.
“I believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people, so whatever happens happens.”
Fox News, which first reported on the probe, said the two men were being scrutinised over unspecified “potential wrongdoing” related to investigations into the 2016 Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.
Multiple other outlets, including CNN and The New York Times, confirmed the investigation.
The FBI declined to comment. The US Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
In an interview with MSNBC, Brennan said he had not been contacted by the authorities, but any investigation was “clearly” politically biased.
“I think this is, unfortunately, a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicisation of the intelligence community, of the national security process,” Brennan said.
“And quite frankly, I’m really shocked that individuals are willing to sacrifice their reputations, their credibility, their decency.”
Comey did not respond to a request for comment sent through his website.
Trump has repeatedly hit out at Brennan and Comey over their role in what he has dubbed the “Russia hoax”.
A 2019 report released by special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump, but did not find that his campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Moscow.
A social media post has dragged former FBI director James Comey into a maelstrom of accusations from critics that he called for the assassination of United States President Donald Trump.
Comey, a fierce Trump critic, denied in a statement that the photo he took and shared on Instagram was a call for violence, adding that “I oppose violence of any kind.” He has since taken down the photo in question.
His rebuttal has, however, done little to calm Trump’s supporters, with the country’s Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service announcing on Thursday that they were investigating the incident.
Here’s a breakdown of what happened:
What did Comey Post?
Comey shared an Instagram photo on Thursday showing seashells on a beach arranged in the numbers “86 47”.
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” his caption read.
Critics were quick to point out that the number “86” refers to old US slang that refers to “getting rid of” something, or “removing something”. The slang was highly in use in restaurants back in the 1930s, and usually signalled to waiters and customers that an item on a menu was sold out and could not be provided.
The “47”, they claim, refers to Trump’s current term in office as the 47th president of the US.
Comey, on the same day, took the photo down. In a separate Instagram post, the former intelligence boss explained that he took the photo while “on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message”.
“I didn’t realise 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,” he said.
The hashtag #8647 has previously, and as early as March, appeared on social media sites like TikTok among posters criticising Trump and calling for his removal. It has come to represent a silent code for opposing the president.
What have Trump’s allies said?
Trump’s supporters on social media channels have denounced Comey’s post, calling it a call for the president’s “assassination”.
Just James Comey causally calling for my dad to be murdered.
President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr on Thursday said in an X post that Comey had “casually called for my dad to be murdered”, adding that the post was “demented”.
Grok, a conversational AI assistant on the Elon Musk-owned social media site, responding to comments from X users asking for clarification on the meaning of the numbers, said it was “basically a sneaky way of saying “get rid of Trump”. However, the assistant also added that the numbers do not “inherently mean assassinate Trump” but rather they imply “political removal”.
Speaking on Fox News, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said she did not accept that Comey was unaware of the violent interpretation of “86 47”. Gabbard said Comey “should be held accountable and put behind bars for this”.
Republican Congressman Andy Ogles said he sent a letter to US intelligence agencies calling for an investigation into Comey’s “disturbing” post to see if the former intelligence boss had violated two federal laws – threatening the president and interstate sharing of threatening communication.
Ogles also demanded confirmation on whether Comey still has access to classified material because of his previous role as FBI director.
“If Comey broke the law, he shouldn’t get a pass. He should be in handcuffs,” Ogles wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in an X post said the matter was already being investigated by US intelligence authorities.
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately,” she posted.
FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed on X that his agency will aid the investigation and “provide all necessary support”.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair said Comey’s post was a call to “terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East”.
“Any Democrat or Media Outlet who fails to condemn this clear Incitement of Violence is complicit and must be described as such.”
FBI Director James Comey (L) and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers take their seats at a House Intelligence Committee hearing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, March 20, 2017 [Joshua Roberts/Reuters]
What is Comey and Trump’s past relationship?
Comey was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Before the 2016 election, Comey investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her time as secretary of state. Many Democrats argue that this investigation, on the eve of the vote, cost her the election, in which Clinton was the party’s nominee against Trump.
But Comey also led the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, and was fired in 2017 by Trump early in his first term in office.
Comey had testified to Congress that Russia did interfere in the 2016 elections. The administration’s official reason for firing him was that Comey was “ineffective”, referring to dissatisfaction with the Clinton investigation, which eventually ended without the politician being charged.
The major sticking point between Trump and Comey, according to analysts, was Comey’s focus on the Russia issue and his refusal to state in public that Trump and his Trump Organisation were not personally being investigated.
Comey began vocally criticising Trump following his dismissal, calling him “morally unfit” to be president and a threat to the norms of democracy in his 2018 memoir, A Higher Loyalty.
May 16 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday night that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating a since-deleted picture former FBI Director James Comey published online as a threat targeting President Donald Trump.
“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” she said online. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
Comey had published the now-deleted photo to Instagram. It showed shells on a beach arranged to form the numerals “86 47.”
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey had written in the caption.
The number 86 is widely used code in restaurants and the hospitality industry meaning an item is either sold out, no longer available or should be removed from a dish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is slag meaning to eject, dismiss or remove.
The number 47 suggests Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.
The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., published a screenshot of the deleted post to his X account, describing the image as “James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.”
In a follow-up post on Instagram, Comey explained that he had assumed the shells conveyed a political statement but not one suggesting violence.
“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,” he said. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the FBI is aware of the post “directed at President Trump” and is in contact with the Secret Service.
“Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support,” he said.
UPI has contacted the Secret Service for comment.
Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, also described the image on X as Comey issuing “a call to action to murder the President of the United States.”
In an interview with Fox News, Gabbard said Comey should be jailed for it.
“I’m very concerned for the president’s life,” she said. “And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”
Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump during his first term in 2017, during which his office investigated Russian interference into the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
