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FBI director Kash Patel took him to social media on Tuesday to accus the former Coast Guard officer who was arrested for threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump. Patel allegedly attributed it in part to a “destroying” Instagram post shared earlier this year by his predecessor, former FBI director James Comey.
“This is the man who used the language of ’86 47′ to threaten President Trump’s life,” Patel said of Peter Stinson, a former Coast Guard official accused of threatening to kill the president. Stinson, who served in the Coast Guard from 1988 to 2021, first appeared in federal court on Wednesday, serving as an instructor for FEMA.
Court documents show that Stinson has posed multiple graphic threats to President Donald Trump.
Comey posted a photo of her shell placed in the sand, numbered “86 47” on Instagram. The post he deleted hours later prompted a backlash, including Trump himself, and, as later detailed by Comey, sparked at least two interviews with the Secret Service.
Comey claims he had no “dark intentions” in the ’86 47′ shell post and doesn’t scare Trump
KashPatel (Getty Images)
The former FBI director said in several public interviews that he had no dark intentions when sharing the photos and associated them with his time as a restaurant server, meaning that his wife would remove it from the menu.
According to Merriman Webster, “86” is slang, which means “throwing away” or “rejecting” the “rejecting” of “refusing to serve.” Of course, Trump is the 47th president.
“I regret the distractions and the controversy surrounding it,” Comey said of the incident on MSNBC. “But again, even in hindsight, it’s hard to regret anything that appears completely innocent to me.”
Comey is not currently investigating the Post, and neither he nor his wife, who was with him at the time, believes it has a malicious meaning.
Still, comeys’ repeated official statements and his compliance with Secret Service officials have little to soften Trump administration officials, including Patel, who currently has a previous job at Comey.
“Tradically, this case was predictable,” Patel told Fox News Digital on Tuesday about the Stinson threat.
Florida man assassinates Trump in 911 and threatens to destroy New York with missiles: Report
(Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“When former director Comey first pulled a disruptive Instagram stunt, the FBI was forced to separate many agents from its key portfolio, and forced Comey to follow the lead and post threatening messages against the US president,” Patel said.
“Thankfully, law enforcement has done an excellent job of blocking potential violent actors. We’re still vigilant,” he added.
Stinson is a Northern Virginia resident, and although it is unclear how much Stinson was affected by Comey Instagram posts or the resulting media coverage, court documents show that many of Stinson’s threats were posted long ago during Election Day and during the 2024 presidential election.
Stinson, a “self-identified” member of Antifa, appeared to evoke at least one threat to a July 13 assassination attempt against Trump while campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“These Secret Service agents moved very slowly,” Stinson said in a post at the time. “They left him for a long time in an open way. The opportunity they missed will never come again. They will teach this to future agents as a failure to protect them and act.”
Federal Jury prosecutes humans for threatening to assassinate Trump after reelection
Donald Trump (Rick Skuteri)
In February, Stinson wrote to his X account, “Yes. This is war. The sides are drawn out. Antifa always wins in the end. Violence is essentially necessary.”
The most recent post referenced in the document was published on Bluesky on June 11, when Stinson allegedly wrote, “The party will become Yuge when he dies.”
Comey didn’t respond immediately to a Fox News Digital request for comments about Patel’s comments or a role that the Instagram post in question may have been misplayed in the incident.
News of Stinson’s arrest comes after the federal ju judge indicted the man San Bernardino County in San Bernardino County, California, for allegedly threatening to assassinate then-presidential election Donald Trump after being elected for his second White House term a few weeks ago.
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“This defendant is being charged with threatening the life of our president. This is a man who has already survived two crazy attempts in his life,” Attorney General Pam Bondy said at the time.
“The Department of Justice will accept these threats to the greatest extent and prosecute this crime to the fullest extent of the law,” Bondy added.
Andrea Margoli of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
Breanne Deppisch is a national political reporter for Fox News Digital, covering the Trump administration, focusing on the Department of Justice, the FBI and other national news.
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