MaddowBlog-Comey's second indictment shows the lengths Blanche will go to please Trump

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The latest indictment of the former FBI director is ridiculous, but it’s part of an unsubtle pattern from the acting attorney general.

The indefensible second Comey indictment is obviously evidence of a weaponized and corrupted Justice Department.

But it’s also one of many unsubtle steps Todd Blanche has taken lately to delight Trump and try to nail down an AG nomination.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-04-28T19:39:33.394Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/comeys-second-indictment-shows-the-lengths-blanche-will-go-to-please-trump

When Donald Trump’s Justice Department first indicted former FBI Director James Comey last year, it was a devastating moment for American law enforcement. MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian reported that within the DOJ, many insiders believed it was “among the worst abuses” in the history of the institution. Describing the circumstances as “shocking,” Dilanian added, “It’s hard to overstate how a big a moment this is.”....

In theory, Trump’s DOJ should have been chastened by the condemnations and by the case’s failure. In practice, the shamelessly weaponized department decided to give it another try. MS NOW reported:

The Trump Justice Department has charged former FBI Director James Comey again, following the dismissal of his first indictment due to the illegal appointment of the prosecutor who secured it.

The new indictment involves allegations that Comey made threats against President Donald Trump in a May 2025 social media posting of a picture of shells on the beach that spelled out “8647,” a source familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

I can appreciate why this might seem like an unfortunate attempt at humor, but it’s apparently quite real. While plenty of political figures from both parties have used “86” over the years as a shorthand for rejecting foes, the president and his team argued in apparent seriousness last spring that the former FBI director had used Instagram to call for violence against Trump by way of a seashell-related code.....

Over the course of a few weeks, the Blanche-led DOJ has prosecuted a progressive group the president hates, intensified a politically motivated purge, advocated firing squads as a method of federal execution while slamming Joe Biden in gratuitous ways, intervened in support of Trump’s ballroom crusade and indicted a former aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci (a leading figure on the White House’s enemies list) before indicting Comey (another leading figure on the White House’s enemies list.)

At an official event this week, the acting attorney general offered such sycophantic praise for the president he seemed to be auditioning to star in a Trump campaign ad.

Acting Attorney General Blanche is now doing a campaign-style promo for Trump

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-27T19:42:41.239Z

No one should want to be an attorney general nominee this badly (under Trump, it’s not even an especially good job anyway), but Blanche’s actions are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

[2naSalit]

1. All I can say is...

I really hope he 'goes through some things' for a long time beginning really soon.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Watts v. United States (1969)-Court said anti-war protester's threat was crude political hyperbole

This case is so stupid that Blanche, Patel and the attorney who signed the indictment need to be disbarred or sanctioned. There is existing SCOTUS authority that this statement is protected by the First Amendment. The SCOTUS opinion dealt with a less ambiguous compared to the 8647 being used here
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/watts-v-united-states/

Court said anti-war protester’s threat was crude political hyperbole
On further appeal, the Supreme Court reversed in a 5-4 per curiam opinion. The majority determined that the federal statute prohibiting threats against the president was constitutional and that true threats receive no First Amendment protection.

However, the majority also determined that Watts’s crude statements were political hyperbole rather than true threats. “What is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech,” the majority wrote. “The language of the political arena … is often vituperative, abusive, and inexact.”

The Court agreed with Watts’s counsel’s characterization of Watts’s speech as “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President” that did not qualify as a true threat.

Justice William O. Douglas concurred in an opinion that would have gone further than the per curiam majority opinion and invalidated the federal statute. “Suppression of speech as an effective police measure is an old, old device, outlawed by our Constitution,” he concluded. Justice Abe Fortas, joined by John Marshall Harlan, dissented in a very short opinion questioning whether the Court should have taken the case.

[-misanthroptimist]

3. Perhaps an ignorant question, but...

...can DOJ attorneys be disbarred for this kind of stuff?

If so, can they remain working for the DOJ?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Update: The US Marshals have been ORDERED by a federal judge in North Carolina to take James Comey into CUSTODY!

Again, this is more proof that this is a political decision/prosecution to make trump happy

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. MS NOW-The Comey indictment is just one way the DOJ is being newly weaponized

Within the last 24 hours, the DOJ has demanded the courts reverse course on President Donald Trump’s ballroom, executed search warrants in Minnesota and indicted a former top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Link to tweet

https://www.ms.now/news/the-comey-indictment-is-just-one-way-the-doj-is-being-newly-weaponized

For months, legal circles have been abuzz with rumors that the Justice Department, undeterred by the dismissal of its first case against former FBI Director James Comey and its inability to secure a second indictment on the same allegations, would indict Comey again for other reasons.

On Tuesday, those rumors became reality when the DOJ indicted Comey in the Eastern District of North Carolina because of his May 2025 social media post of a picture of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” For that, the DOJ has indicted Comey for threatening the life of a president and further, for making a threat to injure another person — also the president — via “interstate communications.” Each count is punishable by a sizable fine, no more than five years in prison or both. ....

Consider other DOJ developments within the last 24 hours:

Late Monday night, in a filing that read like a Trump-written social media screed, not a legal argument, the DOJ demanded that the federal judge overseeing the White House ballroom case reverse a ruling blocking above-ground construction on the ballroom. The DOJ filing was both curious and unnecessary because a federal appeals court has stayed that ruling for at least several weeks, meaning construction can resume as the appeal continues. Nonetheless, the DOJ filing — rife with capitalized words, exclamation points, political epithets and unsupported factual assertions — not only suggested Trump cannot continue construction, but framed the ballroom project as “vital to our National Security, and the Safety of all Presidents of the United States, both current and future, their families, staff, and cabinet members.”

Then, early Tuesday, multiple media outlets reported that the FBI and the DOJ executed search warrants on 20-plus businesses in Minneapolis as part of a wide-reaching federal fraud investigation into the use of federal social services funds. Trump himself has not only commented on that investigation, a departure from usual presidential protocol, but he has also publicly accused several of the state’s top Democratic officials — Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Rep. Ilhan Omar — all of whom have been his political foils, if not his electoral opponents, of being “complicit” in that fraud.

Later, in Maryland federal court, the DOJ indicted a former senior aide to the former National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases head, Dr. Anthony Fauci. There, the government alleged not only that David M. Morens destroyed and/or evaded creating government records by using personal emails, but also that he conspired with Chinese researchers to counter the emerging thesis that Covid-19 was unleashed through a lab leak, thereby limiting the information available to decision-makers, including Trump. In a press release announcing the charges, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged that the aide “deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19” before giving a hint about what has really undergirded the case: His belief that NIH officials were obligated to “provide honest, well-ground facts and advice,” not “advance their own personal or ideological agendas.”

And finally, on Tuesday afternoon, the DOJ unsealed the bare-bones, three-page Comey indictment.

Collectively, these developments highlight that there is a new sheriff in town. And indeed,Blanche, who appears to be publicly auditioning to become Trump’s permanent attorney general, has advanced investigations and cases against the president’s enemies and detractors as rapidly as he has aggressively.

Against that backdrop, the new indictment against Comey hardly seems to be a slam dunk for the DOJ — or Blanche.

But if the process itself is the punishment, and the thing the man Blanche has described as the DOJ’s “boss” craves, Blanche achieved multiple wins — and not just a new Comey indictment — on a random Tuesday in April.

And days like this might be enough to keep him at the attorney general’s desk.

Blanche is making Bondi look ethical in comparison. Blanche really wants the AG job and is going all out to get the nomination

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Trump wants a perp walk

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7. MaddowBlog-The case against Comey will almost certainly fail. For Trump, that's not the point.

The new indictment against the former FBI director checks a set of boxes for the president, none of which has anything to do with securing a conviction.

The case against Comey will obviously fail, but a conviction isn’t the point. For Trump, the indictment:

- makes clear that he can prosecute his enemies based on nothing but his whims, without regard for merit or evidence
- scares other prosecutors into obedience
- imposes hardships on a foe

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-04-29T13:01:38.440Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/the-case-against-comey-will-almost-certainly-fail-for-trump-thats-not-the-point

What’s more, the idea that prosecutors might eventually secure a conviction in this case is ludicrous on its face, though that’s almost certainly the point of this corrupt exercise. In her latest column, Barbara McQuade, a former Michigan U.S. attorney and an MS NOW legal analyst, explained:

Even if the Justice Department cannot convict Comey, prosecutors can make his life miserable for several months by forcing him to pay for a lawyer, occupy his time and attention, emotionally exhaust his family and disparage his reputation.

To be sure, I don’t doubt that the president and those who are doing his bidding would be delighted to see Comey found guilty, but given how pitiful the case is, that’s unrealistic.

There’s no reason to assume, however, that a conviction is Trump’s intended endpoint. On the contrary, given the broader context, the new indictment checks a different set of boxes for the Republican president.

First, Trump appears eager to make it clear that he can orchestrate federal prosecutions based entirely on his whims and petty desires, without regard for merit or evidence. There is, for all intents and purposes, a White House enemies list, and the president seems eager to intimidate and instill fear on those whose names appear on it.

Second, Trump is sending an unsubtle signal to other federal prosecutors who might be inclined to prioritize the rule of law over the White House’s wishes. Indeed, when it comes to the pursuit of the former FBI director, prosecutors who chose not to bring charges against Comey were replaced with those who would follow political instructions. As a second set of charges moves forward, the message to other prosecutors couldn’t be clearer: Play along with the revenge campaign, or face unemployment.

And third, the Comey conviction allows the president to effectively argue that he can force his perceived enemies to endure legal, personal and financial hardships as a direct consequence of their defiance of him, even if the indictments are a joke, and even if the defendants are ultimately acquitted.

Trying to convict the former FBI director is largely irrelevant. The corruption is the point.

I will never forgive Comey for helping elect trump. I was training voter protection attorneys and poll watchers at a downtown law office when one of my firm's associates who was attending the class gave me a funny look. While I was in middle of the class, Comey had announced that they re-opened the Clinton investigation due to emails on Clinton's assistant computer. When I found out, I was shocked because the FBI and DOJ were not supposed to do anything political just before the election. Comey help get trump elected and now trump is persecuting Comey

[travelingthrulife]

8. Are there no patriots left at the DOJ who will honor their oath of office and

release the remaining Trump-Epstein files so we can move forward and remove this mad man from office.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. Recommend The Comey indictment could be upended by this 2015 Supreme Court precedent

The high court a decade ago explicitly overturned the legal standard that prosecutors are now citing to charge Comey with threatening President Trump.

The Comey indictment could be upended by this 2015 Supreme Court precedent www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T00:24:04.224Z

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/04/30/comey-indictment-supreme-court-precedent

The criminal indictment of former FBI director James B. Comey for allegedly threatening President Donald Trump appears to fall short of a standard articulated by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in a 2015 opinion, when the Supreme Court pointedly distinguished a genuine threat from mere speech, legal analysts say.

Roberts, along with a majority of the court, ruled in the 2015 case Elonis v. United States that prosecutors seeking to convict someone of sending a dangerous message must prove the person intended to make a violent threat — or at least knew there was a substantial chance it would be viewed as threatening......

The charges focus on a photo that Comey posted last year showing seashells on a beach arranged to spell out “86 47.” Because 86 can signify “to get rid of,” and President Donald Trump is the 47th president, prosecutors say the shells’ arrangement means “a reasonable recipient” would interpret the message as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm” to Trump.

But that language is from an older, lower legal standard, one that the Supreme Court explicitly overruled in the 2015 case. Eight legal experts interviewed for this article said the Comey indictment fails to provide evidence that the former FBI director intended his social media message as a genuine threat to the president.

Under court rules, prosecutors are obligated to shape the language of their charges to conform with the current state of the law......

“The indictment lacks an essential element of a true threat crime — mainly that the speaker intended to threaten violence, or acted in conscious disregard of the substantial risk that their communication would be viewed as threatening,” said Cole, a former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “They don’t allege any of that in the indictment.”....

In 2015, the Supreme Court had another chance to define what constitutes a threat and what is speech protected under the Constitution — and they set the threshold even higher.

In the Elonis case, which centered on a Pennsylvania man who made potentially threatening statements online, the justices concluded that the mindset of the person who made the comment must be considered. It is not enough for the subject of a comment to view it as a threat, they ruled; the person who made it must have intended it that way.

Eight years later, in Counterman v. Colorado, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Elonis and tweaked the definition a bit, saying prosecutors could also prove that the person making the statement understood that there was a substantial risk the comment would viewed as threatening.

The charges laid out in the Comey indictment, legal analysts said, do not allege that this threshold was met. Instead, the indictment cites the legal standard laid out in the Supreme Court’s Watts opinion, one it subsequently overturned......

Prosecutors appeared to nod to the higher standard in the indictment, alleging that Comey “knowingly and willingly” threatened the life of the president. But legal analysts interviewed said that language alone does not meet the legal standard set by the Supreme Court.

I really had fun reading this legal analysis. I quoted the Watts case in some other posts. Here is clear that this indictment is using a standard that the SCOTUS has rejected and that this indictment would fail under the current state of the law as announced by SCOTUS. This indictment was issued in bad faith and will not survive pass a motion to dismiss.

Blanche is ignoring established SCOTUS precedent