Former FBI Director James Comey Says He’s ‘Totally Innocent’ After Trump Claims Social Media Post Was Call To ‘Assassinate’ Him

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Baila Eve ZismanMay 20, 2025, 11:57 pmNews >

Former FBI director James Comey ignited widespread controversy with a now-deleted Instagram post – but he does not believe he will be punished, saying he’s “totally innocent.”

Comey has a history of making controversial posts to social media that have sparked anger from both sides of the political spectrum. While he previously posted to social media from private anonymous accounts, in 2017 Comey went public with his account and proceeded to share a steady stream of Dad jokes, amateur photography and what he claimed to be newsworthy statements.

Despite being a Republican, Comey publicly supported Donald Trump’s Democratic presidential opponents in both the 2020 and 2024 elections, and he has more than once used his platform to fire back at attacks from Trump and his supporters. Comey, who was appointed the FBI director in September 2013, was fired by Trump in May 2017.

Comey’s most recent post featured a variety of seashells on the beach, arranged to spell out the numbers “86 47” – a message the Trump administration immediately jumped on as a threat of terrorism. The number 86 is regularly used as a slang term for getting rid of, refusing service, or, in some instances, maiming. The term dates back to the 1930s, although the origin is unclear. The number 47 is assumed to be a reference to Trump’s current status as the 47th president of the United States.

In a clip from an interview with Fox News, released last Friday, Trump claimed, “[Comey] 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.”

Comey initially told MSNBC host Nicole Wallace, “I regret the distraction and the controversy around it, but again, it’s hard to have regret about something that even in hindsight looks to me to be totally innocent.

“I don’t know how we ended up here…It never occurred to me it was any kind of controversial thing, but that’s the time we live in.

“[My wife and I] stood over it and I said, ‘I think it’s some kind of political message,’ and she said, ‘”86″ when I was a server…meant to remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients,…And I said, ‘Well, to me, as a kid, it always meant to leave a place, to ditch a place.’ I said, ‘That’s really clever.’

“So then she said, ‘You should take a picture of that.’ And I did, and I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it.

“But I took it down. Even if I think it’s crazy, I don’t want to be associated with violence of any kind.”

Comey shared that within hours of posting the picture, he received a call from the Secret Service and last Friday was interviewed by investigators at the agency’s office in Washington.

When he was asked whether or not he expected to face consequences from the Trump administration, Comey said, “It says something more depressing about the leadership of our current administration. And I just shrug because that’s ridiculous.”

He added, “I don’t – I wouldn’t expect anything to come at me from the shell business.”