Former FBI Director James Comey drew scorn on social media after claiming he and his wife happened upon a group of seashells on a beach that said “8647,” a message some interpreted as a call for presidential assassination, which prompted widespread outrage and a visit from the U.S. Secret Service.
Speaking Monday to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, Comey claimed he has been engulfed in a political firestorm “for taking a walk on the beach with my wife.”
JUST IN: Former FBI Director James Comey says everyone is mad at him for “walking on the beach with his wife,” paints himself as a victim.
What a pathetic excuse of a man.
“All for walking on the beach with my wife. So I don’t know how we ended up here. Never occurred to me… pic.twitter.com/C8uxkYje0W
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— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 19, 2025
On Friday afternoon, Comey posted an image of shells in the sand formed into the numbers “8647,” writing, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” After igniting outrage from many who noted that “86” means to murder someone in mob circles, Comey took down the post and claimed the violent connotation of the term “never occurred to me.”
On Saturday, Comey was escorted to the Washington field office of the U.S. Secret Service and interviewed.
During his Monday interview with Wallace, Comey attempted to blame the controversy on Trump, who fired him in 2017.
“In some strange way, I’m the relationship [Trump] can’t get over, maybe because I’ve lived a happy, productive life since leaving,” said Comey, whose newest book was released Tuesday.
Comey claimed that before he fired off his photo, he and his wife discussed how the meaning of “86” is innocent.
“We stood over it and I said, ‘I think it’s some kind of political message,’ and she said, ‘86 when I was a server’ — she did a lot of working in restaurants — ‘meant to remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients,’” Comey said. “And I said, ‘Well, to me, as a kid, it always meant to leave a place, to ditch a place.’ I said, ‘That’s really clever.’”
“So then she said, ‘You should take a picture of that.’ And I did, and I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it.”
“I heard through her that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy,” the former FBI head continued. “But I took it down. Even if I think it’s crazy, I don’t want to be associated with violence of any kind.”
Critics were skeptical that Comey, who went after the mob during his time at the FBI, had nothing to do with arranging the shells and was unaware that “86” also means to kill someone.
Trump, who was almost assassinated twice last year, was among the first to push back against Comey’s claim that he was ignorant of the message of the seashells.
“He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant,” Trump told Fox News on Friday. “If you’re the FBI director, and you don’t know what that meant, that meant ‘assassination,’ and it says it loud and clear.”
Author and Fox News contributor Joe Concha described Comey’s beach tale as “the biggest lie yet.”
“That Comey somehow stumbled upon some seashells and — claiming to not know what it meant —- decided to take a photo of it and post it online?! And of course, Nicolle Wallace just nods right along.”
Washington Free Beacon journalist Chuck Ross noted that Wallace’s husband often wrote stories in The New York Times flattering to Comey.
“Comey says he’s back in the national spotlight simply ‘for walking on the beach with my wife,” Ross wrote. “(Note that Nicolle Wallace is married to NYT’s Michael Schmidt, the recipient of all sorts of anonymously-sourced pro-Comey scoops over the years).”
“Has anyone done more to utterly destroy the reputation of a federal agency than this guy?” asked radio host Buck Sexton.
Journalist Mollie Hemingway suggested last week that Comey should be subjected to the same early-morning raid that Roger Stone, Catholic father Mark Houck and Trump himself experienced.
“If Comey is interviewed about his call to assassinate President Trump and he repeats his lie that he didn’t know what he was doing, make sure to also charge him with lying to FBI agents,” Hemingway wrote. “Also, do the interview in conjunction with an armed raid at [5 a.m.], for old time’s sake.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., suggested during a Monday interview with CNN that Comey’s seashell post exhibited his immaturity, bitterness and stupidity.
“You can only be young once, but you can always be immature,” said Kennedy, who noted he knows Comey well and that he finds the former FBI director “very self-assured.”
Former FBI Director James Comey’s post was bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. pic.twitter.com/TNCjKnl29z
— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) May 19, 2025
“As Lyndon Johnson used to say, he can strut sitting down. He’s got a chip on his shoulder. In fact, the chip on his shoulder has a chip on its shoulder,” Kennedy continued, adding that Comey interfered in presidential campaigns twice.
“I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him. I don’t know what his intent was, but it was bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid, and I don’t feel sorry for him.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last week called for Comey to be jailed over his post, a threat Comey dismissed during his interview with Wallace.
“I hope people know enough about that particular person that they understand where it’s coming from,” Comey said of Gabbard. “It says something more depressing about the leadership of our current administration. And I just shrug because that’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t — I wouldn’t expect anything to come at me from the shell business.”
