President Donald Trump insisted FBI Director James Comey “knew exactly” what “86 47” meant when he posted a photo to Instagram of shells on the beach arranged to spell out the numerical message, despite Comey claiming he didn’t realize the slang associated with “86” suggested getting rid of Trump.
Trump said Friday in an interview with Fox News “he knew exactly what that meant, a child knows . . . that meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear.”
When asked by Fox News’ Bret Baier what he wanted to see happen to Comey, Trump refused to say, telling Baier it was up to federal law enforcement officials.
Comey captioned the initial image “cool shell formation on my beach walk,” but has since deleted it and posted an explanation as to why he removed it that said “it never occurred” to him the numbers were associated with violence, but that he opposes “violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency and the Secret Service are investigating the post, accusing Comey of having “just called for the assassination” of the president.“He wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant, and he did it for a reason,” Trump said, calling Comey a “bad cop” and telling Baier if Comey had a “clean history” he might be offered some leniency.