How do you maintain relevance when you’re on your 264th minute of your 15 minutes of fame?
We found out Thursday. It involves an eight-year descent from FBI director to Russiagate hoax-pusher to professional NeverTrumper to guy under investigation by pretty much every law enforcement and intelligence agency in the Washington, D.C., alphabet-soup directory for an Instagram post, which not so subtly referenced getting rid of President Donald Trump somehow.
You know, nudge nudge, wink wink.
Unfortunately, getting that kind of relevance comes at a price, as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed Thursday evening on Fox News after Comey’s post had the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service, and pretty much everyone short of Judge Joseph Force Crater investigating the former head of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency going Kathy Griffin.
Former FBI Director James Comey is calling for the assassination of President Trump.
“86” means “to kill, to murder; to execute judicially.” pic.twitter.com/7KZfioYHxa
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 15, 2025
During the interview, Gabbard said, she thought Comey should be put “behind bars” given his “position of influence” and a “call to assassinate the president of the United States.”
“He knew that this was a political statement,” Gabbard told Fox News’ Jesse Watters. “The only reason he knew that, Jesse, was because a little over a month ago, a bunch of anti-Trump, anti-Elon Musk protesters were proliferating the use of this ’86 47′ slogan, which was a veiled call to action to murder the sitting president of the United States.”
The use of the call came as many Tesla dealerships and owners were attacked or threatened by leftist protesters — who, apparently, Comey felt the need to egg on.
Should Comey be put behind bars or his post?
“For Comey to think that we, the American people, are so stupid as to think that he — as a former FBI director, former prosecutor, and someone who clearly pays attention to what’s going on — would believe his lie that he did not know what this was actually calling for, the dangerousness of this, Jesse, cannot be underestimated when we have two assassination attempts on the president’s life,” she continued.
“When we have people who look to guys like Comey — who’ve been celebrated by MSNBC and the Democrat elite and CNN as the ‘beacon of integrity,’ the ‘law and order’ guy, the guy who would tell the truth no matter what the consequences — this is the guy who’s issuing a hit on President Trump, the president that the American people voted for,” she added.
“These are people who hate democracy and hate the American people, because they cannot stand that the people overwhelmingly chose to elect Donald Trump and send him back to the White House, so they are seeking other means to get their way and to try to remove him from that position.”
Gabbard went on to say that the federal government was taking this “very seriously.”
“There has to be accountability for this,” she said, noting a recent study that showed broad support for the assassination of President Trump among liberals, calling it “assassination culture” of the “extreme left.”
“Whatever your politics, we cannot allow people to get by without being held accountable for this kind of public call to assassinate the president of the United States,” she said. As for whether he wanted the government to do that, to become a martyr: “You know, whatever his intent, I will tell you that there’s a guy in Georgia who was issuing threats on my life about a month ago, and he’s in jail,” she said.
“Whatever James Comey [intended], he and people like him need to be held to account according to the law, which is something that he claims to have given his life for and stands by — the rule of law. Fantastic. The rule of law says, people like him who issue direct threats against the president of the United States, essentially issuing a call to assassinate him, must be accountable under the law … James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.”
James Comey just issued a call to action to murder the President of the United States.
As a former FBI Director and someone who spent most of his career prosecuting mobsters and gangsters, he knew exactly what he was doing and must be held accountable under the full force of the… pic.twitter.com/zvbu5Vf0zg
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) May 16, 2025
And make no mistake: 2016 James Comey would have agreed. James Comey in 2016 would have a former political figure who is now a private citizen who made such an obvious threat — not even veiled — investigated and probably charged with something. But then November 2016 happened, and then his firing in 2017 happened, and then everything else.
And now, Comey is a hero in his own mind for echoing a threat against the president — a hero for encouraging extralegal means to bring about a political reality electoral and legal means could not. But he didn’t mean it politically. Come on, guys! Can’t you guys take an Instagram post of interesting seashells that — and I swear, I could never have known this! — was calling for the elimination of the president of the United States? I would never! I mean, except when I do.
The former head of the FBI didn’t know what 86 47 meant? Nice try bro. pic.twitter.com/dXpj8F0VO6
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) May 15, 2025
He probably won’t end up behind bars, alas; I know how this dance goes. That being said, he’ll get all the wrong kind of relevance while it gets sorted out. And it couldn’t happen to a better — and more irrelevant — person.
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