Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem asserted on Thursday that federal law enforcement is currently scrutinising a social media communiqué disseminated by erstwhile FBI Director James Comey, which she and fellow Republicans are interpreting as a tacit incitement to violence against President Donald Trump.

Comey, in a laconic Instagram post, captioned a photograph of fortuitously arranged seashells – appearing, with uncanny specificity, to delineate the numerals "86 47" – with the understated observation: "cool shell formation on my beach walk."

Several erstwhile officials of the Trump administration, Noem included, alleged that Comey was ostensibly inciting the assassination of Trump, the forty-fifth president. "The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service are currently investigating this putative threat and will respond with commensurate measures," Noem asserted.

Merriam-Webster, the bellwether lexicographical resource for The Associated Press, defines "86" as a vernacular idiom signifying ejection, disposal, or service refusal, appending that its emergent sense – a logical, albeit sanguinary, extension – denoting "to kill," remains unentered due to its relative novelty and infrequent instantiation.

The aforementioned post has been expunged; Comey later elucidated, "My prior publication of a littoral shell assemblage, observed during an ambulatory perambulation of the foreshore, was predicated upon an erroneous assumption of its innocuousness. I was hitherto unaware of the numerological association with acts of barbarity imputed by certain interlocutors."

Comey's initial foray into the digital sphere ignited a firestorm of conservative indignation, culminating in Donald Trump Jr.'s incendiary accusation that Comey had effectively issued a call for patricide.

Kash Patel, the incumbent Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, acknowledged cognizance of the aforementioned communiqué and is currently in consultation with the Secret Service and its directorate regarding potential ramifications.

James Blair, White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, observed that the ambassadorship assumed a particular exigency, coinciding as it did with President Trump's diplomatic mission to the Middle East.

Blair's pronouncement on X framed Comey's actions as a bellicose incitement to violence, specifically targeting the President's assassination by terrorist cells and inimical regimes during his forthcoming Middle Eastern sojourn.

Comey, the former FBI Director (2013-2017), was peremptorily dismissed by Trump during the latter's initial presidential tenure, amidst the Bureau's investigation into putative links between Russian operatives and the Trump 2016 presidential bid, an episode subsequently dissected in Comey's commercially successful memoir, "A Higher Loyalty".

Having pivoted to crime fiction, he is currently engaged in promotional activities for his latest offering, "FDR Drive," slated for release this coming Tuesday.