Former FBI Director James Comey was escorted from his home to be interviewed by the Secret Service about a social media post that Republicans insisted was a call for violence against President Donald Trump.
CNN showed video of Comey, 64, leaving his house in his suburban Virginia and heading to the Secret Service’s Washington field office just before 6pm.
The interview is part of an ongoing Trump administration investigation and is expected to help investigators assess the purpose and intent of the post, and whether Comey intended to communicate a threat to the president, which he flatly denied.
Any decision on whether charges should be filed would be up to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump said on Friday, though there’s a high bar in proving that comments or posts amount to direct threats of violence.
The interview is standard for the Secret Service while investigating comments perceived as potentially threatening.
At issue is an Instagram post from Thursday in which Comey wrote ‘cool shell formation on my beach walk’ under a picture of seashells that appeared to form the shapes for ’86 47.’
The Merriam-Webster dictionary says 86 is slang meaning ‘to throw out,’ ‘to get rid of’ or