The Department of Justice’s case against the egregious former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, is as weak a case as he could hope.
Comey had shared an image on social media — a photo of shells on a beach gathered together to markout “86 47” — and, when people interpreted it as a possible threat, he deleted it. “He said he thought it was a political message, not a threat,” an NPR story summarizes, “but now a grand jury in North Carolina has made a federal case out of this. It’s charged Comey with two felonies, including allegedly threatening the life of the president.”
So why do I call it weak? While “86” may have originally meant “kill” or “delete,” amongst gangsters, real or Hollywood, it’s often used colloquially to mean “get rid of.” And though “47” is the number of Trump’s second administration, it’s possible — indeed likely — that Comey didn’t mean “Kill Trump.” He could have meant “impeach Trump” or “prosecute Trump” or any other politically acceptable way to force the president out of office.
Don’t get me wrong. Was it a dumb thing for the disgraced former government official to share? Sure. But even outstandingly horrible former FBI heads have freedom of silly speech.
This is not the first time Comey’s been prosecuted by the Trump DOJ. The last time it fizzled. And, considering the First Amendment, this one will fizzle.
Bringing forward dumb charges looks bad, like Democrats looked prosecuting Trump. The political persecution of enemies is not all that popular.
And in a country filled with political corruption, it sets the cause of “draining the swamp” back, not forward.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Grok Imagine
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts
3 replies on “Prosecutorial Shell Game?”
“86” began as hash-house slang; it meant that some item that had been on offer was to be treated as at an end. This expression is used into the present at some restaurants.
Gangsters retasked the expression. They of course used it to mean that some person was to be ended.
Comey’s pretense that he was unfamiliar with this decades-old use was, very simply, a lie. He had a career in criminal law and Justice-Department administration from 1987 until 2017, had helped prosecute those in organizations such as the Gambino Crime Family, and has dabbled in fiction about the mob.
I don’t think that Comey intended to incite violence, and in any event such intention cannot be proved from the preponderence of the evidence, let alone beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the mainstream of the left has normalized treating the thought of Trump’s death as a source of satisfaction or even of delight. We saw that with Kathy Griffin’s posing with a fake Trump head; we heard that with Jimmy Kimmel’s joke about Melania Trump being widowed; I regularly read entries expressing such sentiments in my Facebook feed.
Given that Comey is firmly in that camp, given that he must have known the gangland slang, and given that he lied about it, I don’t find at all likely that he was doing anything other than expressing a wish for Trump to die.
As a lawyer and law enforcement official, Comey likely knew full well what ’86’ could imply. By posting it, he endorsed it. “He could have meant “impeach Trump” or “prosecute Trump” or any other politically acceptable way to force the president out of office.” That is a pretty weak argument to make. So lawfare is okay with you? You have no problem with current or former government officials, entrusted with power, suggesting it’s okay to force out a duly elected president, even on spurious charges? So much for rule of law.
More than “looking bad,” it has a particular chilling effect. When the president of the United States has an unlimited budget of taxpayer money to go after people who annoy him, those people have to spend their OWN money on defense lawyers and other associated costs. That’s a disincentive to spech that annoys said president.
However much one might justifiably dislike Comey — for example over his “anyone else who did this would be under the jail, but she’s Hillary Clinton, so free pass” treatment of the private email server affair — no one with an IQ high enough to read about the seashell charges believes they have any merit. The entire purpose of the charges is to intimidate other critics.