The US Secret Service is investigating former FBI director James Comey after he posted a photo to social media that Republicans allege is an incitement of violence against President Donald Trump.
Here's what you need to know about the controversy.
What was the social media post?
The photo in question was taken on a beach and showed seashells spelling out the numbers 8-6-4-7.
Mr Comey captioned the post: "Cool shell formation on my beach walk."
What is 8647?
Altogether, 8647 doesn't really have much meaning.
But Republicans say that when you break the number down into two parts, 86 and 47, it's calling for the assassination of Mr Trump.
In American slang, 86 can mean to remove or get rid of something.
It's usually used in the context of restaurants and cafes — if a menu item is not available, it might be referred to as "86ed", meaning it's no longer for sale, or staff might "86" a rowdy customer by refusing them service.
But the term has also evolved to mean "eliminate" or "kill" in some contexts.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says on its website that it has not adopted this definition "due to its relative recency and sparseness of use".
As for the 47, critics have interpreted that as referring to Mr Trump, who is the 47th president of the US.
The "8647" and "8646" themes have been used as political slogans and on T-shirts during the administrations of both Mr Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Mr Trump himself has been accused of using social media posts to incite rioters, who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to prevent the certification of Mr Biden's election victory.
And he last year also posted on social media a video that featured an image of Mr Biden, who was then president, with his hands and feet tied together in the back of a pick-up truck.
What's Comey said about the post?
Mr Comey has since deleted the photo and said he did not realise some would interpret the numbers as a call for violence.
"I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message," he wrote in a post on Instagram.
"I didn't realize some folds associate those numbers with violence.
"It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down."
Has Trump responded?
The president, who has survived two assassination attempts in the past year, is arguing that Mr Comey "knew exactly" what the numbers meant.
"A child knows what that meant," he told Fox News.
"If you're the FBI director, and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination and it says it loud and clear".
Asked what he wanted to see happen to Mr Comey in response to the post, Mr Trump said he would let the "great people" on his team, such as Attorney-General Pam Bondi and current FBI director Kash Patel, decide how to respond.
"But I will say this: I think it's a terrible thing, and when you add his history to that, if he had a clean history — he doesn't; he's a dirty cop, a dirty cop — … I could understand if there was a leniency.
"But I'm going to let them make that decision."
What happens now?
US law enforcement officials said on Thursday, local time, they were looking into the post.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, said on social media platform X that DHS and the Secret Service were "investigating this threat and will respond appropriately".
The Secret Service interviewed Mr Comey at the Washington field office on Friday afternoon, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
The meeting began at about 6pm and lasted an hour, the official said.
In a post to X after the meeting, Ms Noem said she would "continue to take all measures necessary to ensure the protection" of Mr Trump.
What is Comey's history with Trump?
Mr Comey was the director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017, when Mr Trump, then in his first term as president, fired him.
That came amid the bureau's probe of alleged ties between Russian officials and Mr Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Since then, Mr Comey has pursued a career as a crime fiction writer and has remained a vocal critic of the president.
In an interview with 7.30 in 2021, Mr Comey labelled Mr Trump a "demagogue president" and "sociopath".
Long before the 2016 election, Mr Comey had a storied career as a prosecutor, which included years spent chasing mafia bosses in New York.
ABC/Reuters
