Trump: James Comey ‘Knew Full Well’ That Instagram Post Conveyed a ‘Mob Term for Kill Him’

President Trump’s defense of the criminal case brought against the former director of the FBI, James Comey, highlights how the prosecution enjoys the full backing of the White House.On Wednesday Mr. Trump accused Mr. Comey on Truth Social of knowing “full well” that the phrase “86” is a “mob term for kill him.” The indictment charges Mr. Comey with two counts of threatening to harm Mr. Trump. At its center is a since-deleted Instagram post of a photo of seashells arranged on a beach that spelled out “86 47.” Trump is the 47th president. Merriam-Webster notes that “86” is slang for “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” The dictionary adds that “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”Mr. Comey appended to the post the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” The president’s post on Wednesday declared that” 86 47 means ‘kill President Trump.’” He adds “James Comey, who is a Dirty Cop, one of the worst, knows this full well! EIGHT MILES OUT, SIX FEET DOWN! Didn’t he also lie to the FBI about this??? I think so!” Mr. Trump, when asked this week by reporters if the post amounted to a threat, responded “Probably, I don’t know, you know, based on what I’m seeing out there, yeah.” He told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office that “people like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others.” The charges were filed on the heels of the third assassination attempt against Mr. Trump, this one undertaken at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, has been charged with aiming to kill the president.Also on Wednesday Mr. Comey appeared in a Virginia courtroom following a brief arrest. While he did not offer a formal plea — that will come later — he took to Substack to proclaim “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let’s go.” The case will be tried not inVirginia — where earlier charges against Mr. Comey, for lying to Congress, were dismissed after the prosecutor was disqualified — but in North Carolina, where the picture with the seashells was taken.Mr. Trump has called for Mr. Comey to face justice before. In September, in a public message on Truth Social that appears to have been intended for Attorney General Pam Bondi, the president wrote “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Mr. Comey and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, were indicted days later.Mr. Comey’s defense lawyer, Patrick Fitzgrald — a former federal prosecutor — will likely begin his effort to dismiss the case by arguing that the prosecution is “selective” and “vindictive.” He made the same argument in respect of the earlier criminal case against his client, though the disqualification of the prosecutor and the dismissal of the charges meant that the motion was not considered. Mr. Comey is also likely to argue on the merits that the case against him is precluded by the protections vouchsafed in the First Amendment. The Supreme Court held in 2023 that for speech to be prosecuted as a “true threat,” the speaker must possess “some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements.” The indictment of Mr. Comey alleges that he conveyed his message “willfully,” but does not elaborate.Mr. Comey contends that he intended the image to convey political disagreement rather than the threat of violence. He wrote after deleting the message that “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” So expansive are the protections of the First Amendment that the high court ruled in a case in 1969 that when a protester of the Vietnam War declared to a crowd that “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J,” he did not make a knowing and willful threat. The justices cited laughter among the audience as evidence that the threat was in jest.

Trump: James Comey ‘Knew Full Well’ That Instagram Post Conveyed a ‘Mob Term for Kill Him’

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