Mr Comey, who was fired by Mr Trump in 2017, has taken down the post, stating he was unaware of the numbers being associated with "violence". 86 is an American slang term meaning "to throw out," "to get rid of,

Sharing a picture of a shell formation that appeared to read ‘8647’, James Comey wrote, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk”.

The Trump administration accused the former FBI director of insinuating a call to violence in his Instagram post, which he denied.