WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service on Friday about a social media put up that Republicans insisted was a name for violence towards President Donald Trump.
The interview was a part of an ongoing Trump administration investigation and was anticipated to assist authorities assess the aim and intent of the put up and whether or not Comey meant to speak a risk to the president, which he has flatly denied. Any resolution on whether or not prices ought to be filed can be as much as Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi, Trump stated Friday, although there’s a excessive bar in proving that feedback or posts quantity to direct threats of violence.
Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed in a put up on X that Comey had been interviewed and stated she would “take all measures essential to make sure the safety” of Trump. The Secret Service is a part of the Division of Homeland Safety. An interview is a regular a part of an investigation into feedback perceived as probably threatening however doesn’t recommend that prices are being thought-about.
At challenge is an Instagram put up from Thursday wherein Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my seaside stroll” below an image of seashells that appeared to type the shapes for “86 47.”
Merriam-Webster, the dictionary utilized by The Related Press, says 86 is slang which means “to throw out,” “to eliminate” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the many most up-to-date senses adopted is a logical extension of the earlier ones, with the which means of ‘to kill.’ We don’t enter this sense, because of its relative recency and sparseness of use.”
Quite a few Trump administration officers, together with Noem, asserted that Comey was advocating the assassination of Trump, the forty seventh president. FBI Director Kash Patel stated the bureau was additionally supporting the investigation.
Requested about it Friday throughout a Fox Information interview, Trump stated: “He knew precisely what that meant. A baby is aware of what that meant. If you happen to’re the FBI director and also you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”
He deflected a query on what he thought ought to occur, saying the choice can be as much as Bondi.
The put up was deleted Thursday not lengthy after it was made, with Comey subsequently writing: “I posted earlier an image of some shells I noticed immediately on a seaside stroll, which I assumed have been a political message. I didn’t understand some people affiliate these numbers with violence.
Trump and Comey have had a fraught dynamic courting again almost a decade.
Comey was the FBI director when Trump took workplace in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama and serving earlier than that as a senior Justice Division official in President George W. Bush’s administration.
However the relationship was strained from the beginning, together with after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a personal dinner to pledge his private loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Trump fired Comey in Might 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential marketing campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by particular counsel Robert Mueller, would in the end discover that whereas Russia interfered within the 2016 election and the Trump crew welcomed the assistance, there was inadequate proof to show a legal collaboration.
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