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With just a couple of weeks remaining before Election Day 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and generated headlines for an unexpected reason. While interviews tend to be notable for what guests say, the Democratic governor ended up making news for a subtle message she communicated in her on-screen background.
On a table, just behind Whitmer’s shoulder, viewers could see a small pin with four numbers: “8645.” The first two digits were a shorthand for getting rid of something — “86” is a shorthand that’s been around years, often used in restaurants to refer to items no longer on menus — while the last two digits referred to Donald Trump, who was the 45th president at the time.
In other words, the Michigan governor was sending a subtle signal at the height of the election season: Voters should get rid of the incumbent Republican president.
The Trump campaign tried to argue that Whitmer was “encouraging assassination attempts,” but few took the claims seriously. The governor dismissed the criticisms as absurd, and the story quickly faded from view.
Nearly five years later, a similar story has emerged, and as NBC News reported, it’s generating an even more robust response.
The Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service are investigating a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey that several U.S. officials interpreted as calling for the assassination of President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday.
Evidently, Comey shared a photo on Instagram showing seashells arranged to form the numbers “8647.” Republican officials soon after responded with apoplexy, at which point the former FBI director — himself a lifelong Republican — deleted the post and said, “I didn’t realize some folks associate it with violence. That didn’t occur to me when I saw it but I am opposed to violence in all circumstances so I took it down.”
Comey added soon after that he simply assumed that the numbers “were a political message.”
And while that was hardly an unreasonable assumption — plenty of political figures, from both parties, have used “86” over the years as a shorthand for rejecting political foes — Trump administration officials responded to Comey in dramatic fashion.
Noem, for example, issued on online statement that claimed, “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination” of the president. Taylor Budowich, a White House deputy chief of staff, accused Comey of putting out “what can clearly be interpreted as a hit on the sitting president of the United States.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News and said she wants to see Comey “put behind bars for this.” A variety of GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, scrambled to toe the party line and condemn the former FBI director.
Trump himself ultimately joined the parade, in predictably Trumpian fashion.
I’m obviously not in a position to read any of these partisans’ minds. It’s possible that their outrage was sincere, and they genuinely believed that Comey used Instagram to call for violence against the incumbent president by way of a seashell-related code.
But it’s also possible that this elaborate show of anti-Comey wrath is performative.
The reason the latter seems more plausible isn’t just the dubious nature of Team Trump’s over-the-top accusations. There’s also recent history to consider.
When the president first arrived in the White House eight years ago, he saw Comey as an ally — Trump appeared to literally blow a kiss at the then-FBI director at a White House event in January 2017 — thanks in part to Comey’s role in undermining Hillary Clinton’s 2016 candidacy. In time, however, Trump soured on Comey, and ultimately fired him in the hopes of derailing the FBI’s investigation into the president’s Russia scandal.
In the years that followed, Trump continued to target the former FBI director, accusing Comey of “treason,” and even calling for his prosecution over unidentified crimes.
As recently as a few months ago, just days after Trump loyalist Kash Patel was sworn in as the FBI’s newest director, the conservative Washington Times reported that the bureau had opened an investigation into Comey’s role in the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
In other words, Team Trump has long seen Comey as a villain who should be targeted and investigated. His since-deleted Instagram post appears to have given the president’s operation an excuse to do what it wanted to do anyway.
