Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey’s “destructive Instagram debacle” was called out by FBI Director Kash Patel after his latest arrest for alleged threats to kill the president.
“Tragically, this case was predictable.”
Before scrubbing it from his Instagram, Comey made a spectacle of himself days before the release of a new book by sharing a picture of seashells arranged to depict “86 47.” While the former director claimed ignorance on those numbers being associated with “violence of any kind,” Patel decried the “overwhelming number of copycats” the agency has been forced to deal with, including the recent arrest of a former U.S. Coast Guard officer.
Sharing an article from the New York Post detailing the alleged posts attributed to Peter Stinson, who is facing charges for allegedly making threats to kill the president, the director wrote on X, “This is a guy who threatened President Trump’s life using the ’86 47′ language — the exact kind of copy cat law enforcement is now frequently dealing with after former Director Comey’s destructive Instagram debacle.”
This is a guy who threatened President Trump’s life using the “86 47” language — the exact kind of copy cat law enforcement is now frequently dealing with after former Director Comey’s destructive Instagram debacle https://t.co/rRqqty82Yi
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) June 17, 2025
Court documents state, “The post by Comey was interpreted in the news media as a violent threat to President Trump and prompted an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Secret Service. STINSON has since made 13 additional posts on Bluesky, including the text, ‘8647’.”
Rhetoric from the man who was said to self-identify as Antifa dated back to before Comey’s post and included a remark after the assassination attempt on Trump at his July 13, 2024, Butler, Pennsylvania, rally, “Those secret service agents moved very slowly. They left him in the open way [too] long. A missed opportunity will not come around again. They will teach this to future agents as a failure to protect and act.”
“Sure. This is war. Sides will be drawn. Antifa always wins in the end. Violence is inherently necessary,” the account posted in February before asserting on May 9 that Trump needed to be “luigied” in an apparent reference to Luigi Mangione allegedly assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“When he dies, the party is going to be yuge,” read a message from June 11.
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Patel remarked, “Tragically, this case was predictable.”
“When former Director Comey first pulled his destructive Instagram stunt, it forced the FBI to pull numerous agents off of critical portfolios, taking key personnel away from important initiatives protecting the American people to deal with an overwhelming number of copycats following Comey’s lead and posting threatening messages against the president of the United States,” the director continued. “Thankfully, law enforcement did excellent work preventing a potential violent actor, and we’ll continue to be on guard.”
The arrest of Stinson followed an indictment at the beginning of June for 73-year-old Thomas Eugene Streavel of Yucca Valley, California, who had allegedly threatened to kill then-President-elect Trump after the 2024 election.
“This defendant is charged with threatening the life of our President — a man who has already survived two deranged attempts on his life,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release. “The Department of Justice takes these threats with the utmost seriousness and will prosecute this crime to the fullest extent of the law.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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