A mix of record footage display U.S. President Donald Trump within the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. April 9, 2018 and previous FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2017.
Reuters
President Donald Trump mentioned Friday that former FBI Director James Comey used to be “calling for the assassination of the president” in Comey’s since-deleted social media submit that featured the numbers “8647.”
“He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump mentioned in an interview with Fox News, an afternoon after the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service opened an investigation into Comey’s Instagram submit and Trump’s son and others blasted Comey for the submit.
“A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know … that meant ‘assassination,’ ” the president mentioned. “And it says it loud and clear.”
“Our country’s become respected again, and all this, and he’s calling for the assassination of the president,” mentioned Trump, who narrowly survived an murderer’s bullet ultimate summer season.
Comey has denied that his Instagram submit appearing what he known as a “shell formation” of the numbers “8647” used to be a risk to Trump, who fired him as FBI director in May 2017.
“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” Comey wrote in an Instagram submit on Thursday evening.
“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” Comey wrote. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
Source: @comey | Instagram
The time period “Eighty-Six” is a verb, which the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines as informally that means “to refuse to serve” or “to eject or ban” a buyer, and “to reject, discontinue, or get rid of” one thing.
When Fox News’ Brett Baier famous that Comey mentioned he used to be now not calling for violence, Trump mentioned, “Well, he apologized ’cause he was hit.”
Asked what he sought after to look occur to Comey, Trump demurred, pronouncing that it could be as much as Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“I don’t want to take a position on it because that’s going to be up to Pam and all of the great people, but I will say this,” Trump mentioned.
“I think it’s a terrible thing,” Trump mentioned. “He’s a dirty cop. He’s a dirty cop. And if he had a clean history … I could understand if there was a leniency. But I’m going to let them make that decision.”
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