Patel: ‘I won’t be lectured’ by Comey
by Sarah Fortinsky - 05/29/25 7:58 AM ET
FBI Director Kash Patel dismissed criticism from one of his predecessors, James Comey, who recently suggested he was ill equipped to run the bureau.
In an exclusive interview Wednesday on Fox News’s “Special Report,” host Bret Baier asked Patel about Comey’s recent Instagram post of shells arranged to form “8647,” in what many supporters of President Trump’s understood to be a threat on the president’s life.
Others suggested the message could have been a call to oust Trump from power. Comey insisted, however, that he did not arrange the seashells himself — merely took a photo of it — and that he would never call for violence. He subsequently removed the post.
“You know, the FBI is bigger than any leader it’s ever had or ever will have,” Patel said about the Instagram post. “And James Comey is a private citizen, and he can walk around the beach and talk about seashells and Crayola crayons for all I care about and talk about how we’re the conspiracy theorists.”
“But I’ll just remind the American people of one thing,” he continued. “When that man was the leader of the FBI, he perpetrated the largest criminal conspiracy, packaged political information from overseas, took it to a federal FISA court and illegally surveilled a political opponent.”
“So, I won’t be lectured on how to run this FBI from that man,” the FBI chief added.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5323279-kash-patel-james-comey-lecture/