Former FBI director James Comey met the American secret services on Friday, after being called to discuss a social networks article that US President Donald Trump said he was a threat to the president, said US interior security, Kristi Noem.
Noem, in A post on xsaid there was “an in progress in progress” but gave no indication to know if Comey could be subject to additional action.
The secret services, responsible for presidential security and are part of the Ministry of Internal Security, interviewed Comey at the Washington field office on Friday afternoon, according to a law manager who spoke under the cover of anonymity.
The meeting started around 6 p.m. and lasted about an hour, said the manager. Comey appeared voluntarily after being invited to enter, said the source.
The federal organizations for the application of the law investigated an Instagram publication by Comey Thursday with a photo of the number 8647 formed by shells on the sand with the comment, “Cool Shell training on my beach walk”.
In the United States, number 86 can be used as a verb meaning to throw someone out of a bar to be drunk or messy. Trump is the 47th President of the United States.
Comey, who was dismissed by Trump in 2017, won the post after a reaction from Trump supporters, saying on Instagram: “It never came to my mind, but I oppose violence of all kinds, so I removed the post.”
Some supporters of Trump interpreted the message as a call to violently withdraw Trump from the Office, including the assassination.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary says on its website that a recent meaning of the term 86 was “to kill” but that it had not adopted it “because of its relative recence and its rarity of use”.
“Today, the federal agents of @secretservice interviewed the former director of the FBI disgraced Comey concerning an article on social networks calling for the assassination of President Trump,” said Noem in his article on X.
“I will continue to take all the necessary measures to ensure the protection of @potus Trump. This is an inset in progress.”
‘He knew exactly what it meant’: Trump
Trump himself accused Comey on Friday, of having called for his assassination, rejecting the explanation of the former FBI director that he was not aware of any violent connotation.
“He knew exactly what it meant,” said Trump in an interview with Fox News before leaving Abu Dhabi during a four-day trip to the Middle East, adding that he would leave new measures on the issue of the American prosecutor Pam Bondi and others.
Comey was not available to comment.
The themes “8647” and “8646” were used as political slogans and on T-shirts during Trump’s administrations and his predecessor, the American Democratic president Joe Biden, the 46th president.
At the start of his first mandate, Trump dismissed Comey, who as director of the FBI had carried out an investigation into the possible collusion of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign with Russia.
Comey was a critical living of his former boss, calling him “morally unfit” to lead in a 2018 interview.
Trump himself was accused of having used Twitter publications to encourage the rioters, who attacked the American Capitol on January 6, 2021, to prevent the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
Trump last year too Published on social networks A video that presented an image of Biden, who was then president, with her hands and feet tied at the back of a van.
