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You are here: Home / Crime / TRUMP ADMINISTRATION INDICTS JAMES COMEY OVER ALLEGED ONLINE SEASHELL PHOTO THREAT

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION INDICTS JAMES COMEY OVER ALLEGED ONLINE SEASHELL PHOTO THREAT

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Donald Trump’s retribution tour continues. The Justice Department announced that it will be prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey for a photo of seashells that it claims threatened Trump.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday over a photo of seashells officials said threatened President Donald Trump, marking the administration’s second attempt to prosecute one of his biggest political opponents, three sources first told CNN.

The charges, approved by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina where Comey allegedly took the photo, include making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, according to court documents.

Comey responded to the indictment Tuesday in a video posted to his Substack account.

“I’m still innocent. I’m still not afraid,” Comey said. “And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go.”

The new case represents a reinvigorated effort to satisfy Trump’s demands to investigate his own foes, including Comey, who he sees as a key leader in the perceived effort to “weaponize” the justice system against him.

It also comes less than a month after the president dismissed Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump had for weeks complained that Bondi was not aggressive enough in executing his agenda.

Todd Blanche, Bondi’s top deputy and a former Trump personal attorney, is now in charge of steering the department, and has moved quickly to act on matters that the president has publicly pushed for.

“While this case is unique, and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate” Blanche said at a press conference Tuesday.

Tuesday’s indictment is centered on a picture Comey posted on social media last May, of shells on a beach writing out the numbers “86 47.” He wrote in the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

Almost immediately following his post, Republicans and administration officials went full bore in their criticism of Comey for what they said amounted to a death threat.

When used as slang, the number 86 can refer to getting rid of or tossing something out. Trump is currently the 47th president.

Most legal experts and social media commentators say the case is unlikely to go anywhere.

The Popehat Reports’ Ken White calls the case a grave embarrassment and to the United States Department of Justice and the rule of law. Some excerpts from his must-read-in-full post:

No minimally rationally person could possibly conclude, seeing James Comey’s beachside dad joke, that he was expressing a sincere intent to harm the President. Nobody could look at it and conclude that Comey intended to convey that message. In evaluating whether a threat is “true,” the trier of fact must consider the context. Here the context is seashells. The context is the former Director of the FBI, a lifetime member of law enforcement, who is a well-known critic of the President and a target of the President’s wrath, using a campy mechanism to express opposition to the President, using slang for “ditch” or “eject” or “get rid of.” No rational person could see that and say “the former director of the FBI is saying he’s going to kill the President”!”

I could now cite to you a legion of cases for that proposition, finding rhetoric far more concerning than this protected by the First Amendment, analyzing language and context to show this is protected. But it wouldn’t matter, would it? If you are a minimally rational person, you don’t need to see the precedent, and if you’re a cultist, no amount of precedent matters to you.

As a lawyer commenting on the Trump administration’s legal arguments, I face a challenge: how do I convey to non-lawyers, or even lawyers in different fields, the shameless fatuity of some of the Trump Justice Department’s arguments? Words fail. This case is overtly, obviously, on its face, ridiculous and premised on a foolish and unconstitutional theory. I know it as confidently that those of you who work with numbers know that 2 + 2 = 5 is not a plausible argument. I know it as confidently that those of you in the arts know that “John Wayne Gacy is the most respected American painter” is wrong.

Yet we live under a Department of Justice that will commit this travesty and argue it’s valid.

And:

I believe it is unlikely the indictment will survive….

…But that’s not the point, is it? The point of the indictment is to demonstrate that the United States Department of Justice is wholly an instrument of Donald Trump’s senescent pique, no more independent of him than a boil on his ass. The point is to show that the administration can, and will, use the Department’s mechanisms to punish enemies. The point is to show that the Department can, and will, punish protected speech. The point is to show that the Department is staffed by committed fanatics willing to do anything, however unethical and unconstitutional, to promote Trump.

The point is to show that in the war between Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice, Trump has won. Now they’re on the field slitting the throats of the wounded and looting bodies.

The road back to credibility for the Department will be long and arduous. I do not expect it to recoup its presumption of regularity or respect within a generation.

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