Beware what you do with seashells. After a earlier try and prosecute former FBI Director James Comey (the costs have been thrown out), President Donald Trump instructed performing Lawyer Basic Todd Blanche to discover a new option to prosecute Comey.
As a part of his audition to be the Lawyer Basic, Blanche has succeeded find a brand new option to fulfill Trump’s ever-present need to punish his perceived enemies. Comey was indicted on April 28 over an Instagram submit from final yr exhibiting the numbers “86/47” written in seashells on the seashore, with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
In line with the brand new indictment, Comey, whose reopening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton on the tail finish of the 2016 election probably led to Trump’s victory (Trump has been very unappreciative of Comey’s function in elevating him to the Presidency), the seashell’s message was a menace to the President, punishable by as much as 10 years in jail.
That is the second try by the DOJ to prosecute Comey. The primary occurred on Sept. 25, 2025, on expenses of constructing a false assertion and obstruction associated to Comey’s testimony earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, simply days after Trump issued a public demand for his Justice Division to behave “now” to carry prosecutions in opposition to Comey and different political foes.
When Blanche just lately appeared on NBC, he was confronted with the truth that Amazon lists dozens of merchandise with the time period “86/47.” Blanche conceded that the phrase is used often and that not everybody who makes use of it ought to be prosecuted. Blanche claimed that the federal government has rather more proof of Comey’s intent to incite an assassination than the seashells.
Nonetheless, it seems like the identical double-talk that the DOJ and the Administration suppose protects them from actuality.
As I recall from after I was a waiter as a youngster, the time period “86” has a definite which means: within the restaurant enterprise, it means the kitchen has run out of a selected dish.
Robert SimelsProvided
As a result of 86 can imply “to get rid of,” and Trump is the forty seventh president, prosecutors say the shells’ association means “a reasonable recipient” would interpret the message as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm” to Trump.
It’s alarming that the DOJ has sought to prosecute Comey for his “threat,” however the language they depend on to carry the cost is from an older, decrease authorized commonplace, one which the Supreme Court docket explicitly overruled within the 2015 case.
Underneath court docket guidelines, prosecutors are obligated to form the language of their expenses to evolve to the present state of the legislation. Not solely ought to the Comey indictment be dismissed, however any prosecutor who signed off on the prosecution must also be sanctioned.
The indictment lacks a vital aspect of a real menace crime — primarily that the speaker supposed to threaten violence, or acted in acutely aware disregard of the substantial threat that their communication could be seen as threatening.
The Supreme Court docket has spent a long time honing the definition of a menace underneath the statutes that Comey is charged with violating. In 1966, Robert Watts stated at a protest that he had obtained his draft letter, and “if they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ.” He was arrested and charged with threatening President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Supreme Court docket stated that Watts’s assertion constituted political speech, not a bona fide menace.
In 2015, within the Elonis case, during which a Pennsylvania man posted probably threatening statements on-line, the Supreme Court docket additional outlined what constitutes a menace and what speech is protected underneath the Structure — and set the brink even increased. The Court docket concluded that the mindset of the one who made the remark have to be thought of. It’s not sufficient for the topic of a remark to view it as a menace, they dominated; the one who made it should have supposed it that means.
In 2023, in Counterman v. Colorado, the Supreme Court docket reaffirmed Elonis and tweaked the definition a bit, saying prosecutors may additionally show that the individual making the assertion understood that there was a considerable threat the remark could be seen as threatening.
The costs specified by the Comey indictment don’t allege that this threshold was met. As an alternative, the DOJ cited the authorized commonplace specified by the Supreme Court docket’s Watts opinion, one it subsequently overturned.
Whereas the Administration denies that the prosecution of Comey is a part of Trump’s vengeance tour, claiming that the prosecutions are “driven by law and not by politics,” they comply with Trump’s vow throughout his presidential marketing campaign to hunt retribution if reelected.
It’s greater than troubling that Trump’s evaluation of whether or not somebody is responsible is based upon vengeance with out regard to the legislation or the information. This has been his mantra all through his life.
Only some weeks in the past, it was reported that Trump’s mindset is similar because it was 37 years in the past when he instructed the necessity to reinstitute firing squads.
By 2015, political discourse took a darker flip when photos of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders getting tossed out of an plane started circulating.
“If somebody knew what needed to be done, that person should probably just do it …” the 27-year-old progressive influencer continued, conspicuously not defining “it.” Vanest uploaded the 62-second video to TikTok, the place it amassed greater than 700,000 likes and three.2 million views. His model on Instagram garnered one other 1.4 million views. Vanest’s plea is a part of a social media pattern that has twisted the concept of a presidential assassination right into a morbid joke.
The absurdity of the newest cost in opposition to Comey just isn’t misplaced on anybody however the Trump Administration. Let’s contemplate the distinction between shells within the sand and Trump’s incendiary phrases and actions advocating hatred and violence in the direction of his perceived political enemies:
Trump shared a video in March 2024 that featured an illustration of then-President Joe Biden along with his palms and toes tied. (That image was on the again of a pickup truck that was touring down the freeway.)
Repeatedly urged his supporters to beat protesters, known as opponents “traitors” and “vermin,” amplified a name to “HANG” Democrats, and described lawmakers’ conduct as “SEDITIOUS” and “punishable by DEATH!”
In June 2020, throughout a Presidential debate, when requested to disavow violence by his supporters, Trump requested a recognized violent group of supporters, the Proud Boys, to “Stand Back and Stand By.”
Trump urged these gathered on January 6, 2021, to storm the Congress to cease the electoral vote rely. Certainly, Trump was indicted for his actions on January 6.
Trump repeatedly says and posts his hate for the “Deranged Democrats.”
Trump has urged supporters at rallies to punch protesters and has proven his willingness to pay their authorized payments.
Trump has threatened the citizenry that the navy could be used in opposition to the “enemy within.”
Trump has attacked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with derogatory names, together with “numbskull,” “knucklehead,” “incompetent,” “crooked,” “moron,” and “an American disgrace.”
Accused former President Barack Obama and Senator Adam Schiff of treason.
Refers to Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries as a “THUG” and says he’s a hazard to the Nation.
Trump and his Vice-President have attacked the Pope because the Anti-Christ.
After the dying of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, Trump stated, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Following the tragic dying of Rob Reiner, Trump claimed that Reiner’s dying was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
Mocked Nancy Pelosi’s husband after he was attacked with a hammer by certainly one of his supporters.
Referred to as Pelosi “crazy,” and laughed as his supporters chanted “lock her up” in reference to the previous Home Speaker. [Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan noted that these remarks were, “A braying authoritarian mob calls for the imprisonment of the other party’s legislative leader days after an attempt to take her hostage and torture her. What would you say if you saw it in another country?”]
Even Trump’s vacation “greetings” are designed to inspire his supporters in opposition to anybody within the Democratic Social gathering: “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY…” and “Merry Christmas to all, together with the Radical Left Scum that’s doing every thing potential to destroy our Nation, however are failing badly.
His misogyny has no bounds and often seeks to undermine feminine members of the media.
That is, of necessity, a shortened listing of Trump’s almost-daily posts and statements. In some cases, orders to Homeland Safety, the DOJ, and the navy, suggesting to his supporters that his enemies are their enemies.
At the very least at this second, Trump can not put folks in a tower as historic kings did, and order the usage of a guillotine, however would if he may. Trump doesn’t appear to understand that he’s the president of all of the folks, not simply the 35% who suppose he’s Jesus reincarnated.
So, it is a warning for if you find yourself on the seashore this summer season: Be aware that in the event you write one thing within the sand that Trump views as antagonistic, or construct a sand fort (with out Trump’s title on it), chances are you’ll be topic to prosecution.
Robert Simels hosts a podcast, “Injustice for All.” He’s not practising legislation.
