An enraged President Donald Trump attacked former FBI Director James Comey in a Saturday morning Truth Social post in which he spewed lies about his 2020 election loss and claimed “Dirty Cop” Comey was somehow behind it all.
“Remember, it all began with DIRTY COP James Comey, Obama, a hapless and cognitively impaired Sleepy Joe Biden, and my now very famous ACCUSATION that, ‘THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!’” the president wrote, already fuming at 8:30 a.m.
Trump alleged that Comey, whom he fired in May 2017, spied on by tapping his phone during the FBI’s investigation into Russian election interference in 2016.
However, there is no evidence to support Trump’s claims. Trump’s post also didn’t explain his logic in connecting Comey’s tenure as FBI director, nominated by Obama in 2013, to his election loss.
Yet Trump’s rage post came amid intensifying outrage over a social media post Comey shared in which seashells were arranged to spell out “86 47.”
Trump’s supporters have alleged that Comey was calling for the 47th president’s assassination. However, others have pushed back, saying that the term “86” usually means “get rid of” rather than “kill.”
Comey deleted the post, claiming that he thought it was just a “political message” and didn’t realize that it could have been interpreted as a call for violence.
Trump disagreed.
“He knew what that meant. A child knows what that meant,” the president said Friday in a Fox News interview. “If you’re FBI director and don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination and it says it loud and clear.”
Comey was spotted being escorted away by the Secret Service for questioning on Friday in Washington, D.C. According to a CNN report, Comey has been willingly cooperating with the agency.
Yet Comey wasn’t Trump’s only target on Saturday. The Republican president also took aim at former President Joe Biden on the heels of reports that he used an autopen to authorize key executive actions.
“Whoever had control of the ‘AUTOPEN’ is looking to be a bigger and bigger scandal by the moment,” Trump wrote. “It is a major part of the real crime, THAT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!”
In March, Trump argued that any pardon signed by Biden using an autopen—a device that recreates a person’s signature—should be regarded as “void.”
There is evidence that Biden rarely used an autopen to sign official orders—as other presidents have done. Legal experts have contradicted the claim that using an autopen would nullify an order.
Concerns about Biden’s mental acuity as president have resurged after the release on Friday night of audio 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. Excerpts of the recording, published by Axios, reveal Biden having memory lapses and fumbling over his speech.
Before Trump’s post, House Oversight Chair James Comer, a Republican, had announced an investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen.
“We think we’ve identified who the staffers are,” Comer told Fox News on Friday. “We’re going to bring everyone that we believe was involved… for a transcribed interview. If they want, then they will receive a subpoena.”
