Trump: Comey post ‘meant assassination’

President Trump said he thinks former FBI Director James Comey’s Instagram photo of seashells on a beach arranged to form the numbers “8647” was a call for his assassination, saying the Justice Department will deal with the repercussions.

The post on Thursday, which Comey has since removed, garnered significant blowback from much of Trump’s base with many understanding the numbers to be a call for violence against the 47th president.

“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,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier.

“Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant. And he did it for a reason, and he was hit so hard because people like me, they like what’s happening with our country,” he told the “Special Report” host. “Our country’s become respected again and all this. And he’s calling for the assassination of the president.”

Baier noted Comey apologized, clarified in a new post he did not intend to call for violence and said he didn’t realize his message would be interpreted that way.

“Well, he apologized because he was hit,” Trump replied.

Baier then asked what the president wants to see happen in response and Trump deferred to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“I don’t want to take a position on it, because that’s going to be up to Pam and all of the great people. But I will say this, I think it’s a terrible thing,” Trump said. “And when you add his history to that, if he had a clean history, he doesn’t.”

“He’s a dirty cop, he’s a dirty cop,” he continued. “And if he had a clean history, I could understand if there was a leniency, but I’m going to let them make that decision.”

Comey is a longtime foe of the president and has publicly criticized Trump in the past. The president fired him as the head of the FBI in 2017 and the former official later backed former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid in 2024 and former President Biden’s bid in 2020.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused Comey of calling for Trump’s “assassination,” and a spokesperson for the Secret Service told The Hill the agency “vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees.”