Trump's 2nd Bogus Indictment of James Comey

If it’s possible, the Trump Justice Department’s new indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is even more absurd than the previous indictment. That one failed to state a crime. This one fabricates a crime.

The new charges, which have not been released as this is written, reportedly stem from an Instagram post Comey moronically published last year, showing seashells arranged to form the message “86 47.” Even more moronically, the Trump administration interpreted the message as a threat to assassinate the 47th president.

The number “86” is sometimes used in organized crime or gang circles to suggest killing; in more common parlance, however, it connotes getting rid or something, tossing something in the trash, etc. It is not even clear that Comey himself arranged the seashells in his photo, but the claim that, by posting what he’d observed, he was calling for Trump to be assassinated is ridiculous. In the United States, where political speech is protected by the First Amendment, the government may not criminalize the expression of opinion that the incumbent president should be removed or otherwise rejected. (I won’t try to count the number of times Trump did it while Biden was president.)

After uproar generated by the administration, Comey took down the post and publicly asserted that he opposes violence and meant no such suggestion. He also voluntarily submitted to interviews with the Secret Service — which proceeded to drop what should never have been a criminal investigation. There was not a threat of violence against the president, much less an unambiguous call for his assassination. Nor would it be remotely possible, on the known evidence, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey intended violence.

Read the rest here.