Former FBI Director James Comey explained what led to his controversial “86 47” Instagram post directed at President Donald Trump during an appearance on “The Late Show” Tuesday night.
Comey claimed that he and his wife, Patrice, saw the “clever political message” while walking on the beach when his wife suggested that he take a picture of the shells and post it online.
The ex-FBI director posted an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to show the numbers “86 47,” a message White House officials swiftly condemned as an attempt to put out a “hit” against the 47th president.
Comey told host Stephen Colbert that his wife initially questioned why someone would “put their address in the sand,” before coming up with a second theory behind the message.
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Comey later deleted the post after online backlash from government officials, lawmakers and Trump’s son. Trump has faced two assassination attempts in the past year, one of which resulted in him being wounded and a bystander being killed.
“We stood at it, looked at it, trying to figure out what it was, and she [Patrice Comey] had long been a server in restaurants and she said, ‘You know what I think it is? I think it’s a reference to restaurants when you would 86 something in a restaurant,’” Comey claimed.
Comey, on the other hand, had a different idea of what the number “86” could signify initially.
“I said, ‘No, I remember when I was a kid, you would say 86 to get out of a place. ‘This place stinks — let’s 86 it,’” he explained.
Having worked as a bartender, Colbert added that “86” could stand for serving a drunk patron “low-proof alcohol.”
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“So I said, I think it’s a clever political message,” Comey continued. “She said, ‘You should take a picture of it.’ I said, ‘Sure.’ And then she said, ‘You should Instagram that.’ And boom.”
Colbert noted that Trump didn’t find the shell display to be “clever” and that the president said even “a child” knows what the shell message represented, a call for him to be assassinated. Comey was questioned by the Secret Service about the incident.
“All they did was act like pros, and they are pros, just said, ‘What did you intend? What did you understand? Why did you do this?’ And I gave them the same explanation, which is the truth, and I would expect it to go away,” Comey said.
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Colbert congratulated Comey on making waves with his “viral campaign.”
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