One of Utah’s most faithful supporters of Donald Trump, Sen. Mike Lee, announced Tuesday that he is introducing legislation calling for an investigation into one of the president’s most prominent critics.
The resolution comes in response to a photo shared on Instagram by former FBI Director James Comey. The image portrayed seashells arranged to say, “86 47,″ and was accompanied by the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
In his current term, Trump is the 47th president, and the number “86″ is used in a variety of ways. Employees at bars and people affiliated with the military will often say it in reference to someone or something being thrown out, but in some contexts, the digits are used as slang for killing a person.
The same day he posted the photo, Comey deleted it, writing, “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.”
“For the former FBI director to be amplifying threats against the president of the United States is disgraceful,” Lee said in a news release announcing the resolution. “President Trump has been targeted in two assassination attempts and wounded in one, which killed Corey Comperatore. Congress should unite to condemn Jim Comey in the strongest terms.”
The resolution’s title accuses Comey of “inciting violence against President Donald J. Trump,” and its text characterizes the post as “[issuing] a call for violence.” It also says the former FBI head “exhibits a clear desire to undermine President Trump” and follows a similar resolution introduced by a pair of House Republicans last month.
If passed, it would urge officials to take steps to bar Comey from again serving as a federal employee, and request an investigation by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security into “Mr. Comey’s attempts to incite violence against the president.“
FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2018 file photo, former FBI Director James Comey speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill Washington. Comey will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, appearing just a month before the presidential election as Republicans have tried to make the case that he and his agency conspired against Donald Trump in 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Comey drew Trump’s ire during his first term in the Oval Office for FBI investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The GOP president fired Comey, then a registered Republican, in the middle of his 10-year FBI term.
The ex-director subsequently testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee on his termination. Lee said in a TV interview at the time that the testimony, in his view, did not indicate wrongdoing on Trump’s part and that it was “time to move on.”
When Trump ran for president again in 2020, Comey endorsed his opponent, former President Joe Biden.
In a thread on social media last month reacting to Comey’s initial post, Lee echoed a narrative pushed by Trump and some of the president’s backers that the image amounted to encouraging an assassination attempt.
“I urge all,” Lee wrote, " ... to avoid and discourage the use of signaling that some could far too eagerly accept as an invitation for yet another assassination attempt on the life of the President of the United States.”
The Secret Service, tasked with protecting the president, interviewed Comey about his comments. In a public appearance afterward, Comey called the controversy over his post “a bit of a distraction.”
