Comey's speech is protected by the First Amendment. It is not a "true threat" and cannot justify federal prosecution.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

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.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. "86" has many possible meanings, including impeachment.

Link to tweet

[ariadne0614]

2. The history of "86" is interesting.

James Comey is no hero to me because of what he did to Hillary, but the malicious absurdity of the case against him is clear.

“Although Merriam-Webster notes some equate “86” with “to kill,” it adds this use is infrequent: “We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”
https://www.history.com/articles/86-meaning

[EarthAbides]

3. Postcards

I think everyone should send a postcard to the White House that says 8647 in big bold lettering, no return address. Let's see how they justify indicting Comey after that.

[spanone]

4. todd blanche is the acting attorney general and he doesn't care about the law

He's doing trmp's bidding. Period. Regardless of the law.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. 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

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. 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.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Now imagine if Watts had written it in seashells.

Last edited Thu May 7, 2026, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

In 1966, Robert Watts said if he were forced to carry a rifle, the first man he’d want “in his sights” was LBJ.

The Supreme Court said that was political hyperbole, not a true threat.

Now imagine if Watts had written it in seashells.