WASHINGTON: Donald Trump labelled former FBI director James Comey a “dirty cop” on Friday over a social media post that the US president deemed a veiled call for assassination and which prompted a Secret Service probe.

Comey made a now-deleted post on Instagram the previous day that showed an image of “86 47” spelled out in sea shells, with “86” being slang for kill and Trump the 47th president.

“He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Friday. “That meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear.

Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.“ “He’s calling for the assassination of the president,” Trump said, branding Comey “a dirty cop.”

Comey said on Thursday on Instagram that he posted “a picture of some shells I saw today 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. Trump administration officials were unconvinced, with Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem saying DHS and the US Secret Service — which is charged with protecting the president — were investigating and “will respond appropriately.”

FBI Director Kash Patel meanwhile said the law enforcement agency was “in communication with the Secret Service” and that it would “provide all necessary support.”

And Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Comey had “issued a call to action to murder the president of the United States,” adding: “We fully support the Secret Service investigation into Comey’s threat on President Trump’s life.”

On Friday, US media reported Comey was questioned by the Secret Service over his post. Trump was wounded in the ear during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally last July in Butler, Pennsylvania, and has faced other threats.

Comey and Trump have a contentious history, with the president firing him in 2017 as the FBI chief was leading a probe into whether Trump’s aides colluded with Moscow to sway the presidential vote the previous year.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2025