James Comey, the former FBI director who was abruptly fired in May, has seemingly revealed himself as Twitter user Reinhold Niebuhr.
In March, the account tweeted out the famous Anchorman meme — “Actually, I’m not even mad. That’s amazing!” — alongside a link to the FBI’s jobs website.
But how did anyone know to look at such a random and seemingly inconspicuous handle?
Also in March, Gizmodo’s Ashley Feinberg conducted her own social media investigation, and with the help of Instagram’s recommendation algorithm, narrowed down that Reinhold Niebuhr was ‘almost certainly James Comey’s Twitter account.’
But none of this is a confirmation.
Yesterday, however, the Reinhold Niebuhr account tweeted a picture of James Comey:
Shortly thereafter, Comey’s friend and Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes confirmed that the mysterious Twitter account does indeed belong to the former FBI director:
Since joining in February 2014, Comey’s account has tweeted six times and amassed more than 100k followers.