James Comey confirms he is Reinhold Niebuhr on Twitter

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:

Goodbye Iowa. On the road home. Gotta get back to writing. Will try to tweet in useful ways. pic.twitter.com/DCbu3Yvqt3 — James Comey (@Comey) October 23, 2017

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:

Ok, in light of this latest tweet, I will confirm that @FormerBu is, in fact, James Comey himself. https://t.co/6QbhOG7Qzp — Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) October 23, 2017

Since joining in February 2014, Comey’s account has tweeted six times and amassed more than 100k followers.