After making a cryptic Instagram post that called for Trump’s death, former FBI Director James Comey appeared publicly for the first time with an interview on MSNBC.
On Friday afternoon, Comey was interviewed by the US Secret Service at their Washington Field Office.
Comey faces an investigation following his Instagram post, which has been interpreted as advocating for Trump’s assassination.
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” read Comey’s caption alongside the photo.
“86 47” = Kill Trump
CNN reported that Comey was not detained or arrested, but instead met with the Secret Service voluntarily for questioning.
Comey’s subsequent statement appeared to contradict the situation.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize 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,” Comey explained on his Instagram account.
Comey claimed he was not responsible for arranging the shells, suggesting he merely came upon the message by coincidence during his beach stroll.
On Monday, while also mentioning his new book, Comey shared a detailed story about discovering the shell formation while walking with his wife on the beach.
“Yeah, all for walking on the beach with my wife. So I don’t know how we ended up here. Never occurred to me that it was any kind of controversial thing, but that’s the time we live in,” Comey told Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC.
Nicolle Wallace asked, “So, take me back to the walk on the beach.”
“We were walking on the beach, we went to the beach to prepare for this week… and we were walking back towards the road and we saw in the sand someone had arranged shells with numbers. And Patrice, my wife, said, ‘why would someone put an address in the sand?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know’ and we stood over and I said, ‘I think it’s some kind of political message,’” Comey stated.
He then referenced his wife’s interpretation.
“She said you know, when I was a server – she did a lot of work in restaurants – 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.’ And she said well that very clever you should take a picture of that and I did and posted it on my Instagram and though nothing more of it until I heard through her that people were saying that it was a call for some sort of assassination which is crazy!” Comey said.
Video footage of Comey’s comments circulated widely:
During his conversation on MSNBC, Comey described himself as a typical grandfather who enjoys simple attire, saying he found the shell arrangement to be an impressive display of someone’s creativity.
Video of his remarks is also available:
