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President Trump made clear he was unconvinced of former FBI Director James Comey’s attempt at saving face after he appeared to covertly call for Trump’s assassination in a Thursday Instagram post.
In a Fox News interview airing Friday night, Trump remarked, “He knew exactly what he meant.”
Comey’s post included a photo of seashells arranged in sand to say, “86 47,” which has historically been used as a call to murder someone. “Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey captioned the post.
Later, the former “top cop” deleted the post and attempted to play innocent. “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 wrote.
Trump’s response showed his disbelief at Comey’s excuse, but he stopped short of demanding accountability to let the appropriate agency(s) handle the matter.
“He knew exactly what he 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. Now, he wasn’t very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant. And he did it for a reason, and he was hit so hard, because people like me, and they like what’s happening with our country. Our country has become respected again and all this – and he’s calling for the assassination of the president,” Trump stated.
“I don’t want to take a position on it because that’s going to be up to Pam [Bondi] and all of the great people … But I will say this, I think it’s a terrible thing, and when you add his history to that, if he had a clean history – he doesn’t, he’s a dirty cop. He’s a dirty cop. And if he had a clean history, I could understand if there was leniency. But I’m going to let them make that decision,” Trump added.