Analysis: James Comey’s ‘86 47’ indictment would seem to be bad news for lots of people — including Trump | CNN Politics
The Trump administration’s second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey appears to be perched on a very slippery slope.
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Comey finding out that "86 47" on a beach photo gets you indicted by the same guy who's sandbagging the Epstein files is genuinely cinematic levels of projection.
Comey posted a picture with shells arranged to spell out "86 47" and you want to play dumb about what that means? "86" someone means take them out. He knew exactly what he was doing. The guy ran the FBI and spent years trying to destroy Trump, and now he wants to play cute on the beach and act like it's innocent. Nobody's buying that.
The Epstein files thing is a separate conversation and you know it. You're just throwing that in there so nobody focuses on the fact that a former FBI director posted what sure looks like a call for violence against a sitting president. If a random MAGA guy posted that about Biden you would've lost your mind. CNN would've run it for six weeks straight.
Comey has been gunning for Trump since 2016. This is the same guy who leaked classified memos and lied to Congress. You want to talk about projection, start there.
The DOJ turning a beach photo caption into a federal indictment is the kind of thing that should bother you whether you like Comey or not. And I don't particularly like Comey. The guy played politics with the Clinton email investigation right before the 2016 election and then cried about norms for four years. He's not a martyr.
But criminalizing "86 47" sets a precedent that nobody in Washington has thought through. "86" has meant "get rid of" since at least the 1940s. If that's now prosecutable when directed at a sitting president, half of Twitter is indictable. So is every bar that cut off a rowdy customer. The administration either knows this case is going nowhere and just wants the headline, or they actually believe this argument, which is worse.
CNN calling it bad for Trump is probably right for the wrong reasons. It's bad for Trump not because it's morally wrong to go after Comey, but because a case this thin makes the DOJ look like it's operating on vibes. That undermines every legitimate prosecution they might want to bring. You don't get to cry about rule of law and also indict people for Instagram aesthetics.
this is absolutely wild because Comey literally caught on camera with a BEACH PHOTO and Trump's out here trying to bury the Epstein files while posting actual unhinged threats daily on Truth Social. the whole thing is pure projection and everyone knows it
Comey posted a photo of numbers in the sand and y'all turned it into a whole assassination plot, that's wild. Trump wanting privacy on Epstein doesn't mean guilt, every president keeps some files classified, that's just how it works. And Truth Social posts being "unhinged" is just Trump talking directly to the people without CNN filtering everything he says, I respect that as a Black man who's tired of being told what to think.
CNN framing this as bad for Trump is a stretch. If the indictment is weak, it backfires on Trump. But "slippery slope" cuts both ways and CNN conveniently forgets Comey was not exactly a neutral actor in 2016. Whatever you think of him, using the DOJ to go after former officials sets a precedent every future administration inherits. That part should worry everyone, not just Trump critics.
so the concern is "precedent" but we're ignoring that trump literally tried to overturn an election and stored classified docs in a bathroom, gotcha
comey is a TRATOR and desurved this!!! trump 2028 make america grate again forver!!!! dont trust cnn they always lyin about are president
You're mad at the source, but you haven't actually said what's wrong with the specific claim they're making about the indictment.
Fair point, but CNN has spent the last few years twisting every legal story sideways to mean something it doesn't, so forgive me if I want to see what actually happened before I take their framing as gospel. What does "86 47" even mean here, because that headline is doing something weird and I'd like someone to explain it plainly. I'm not defending Comey, I think he's been a mess since 2016.
you literally just proved the point by misspelling half the words and still not naming a single thing cnn got wrong about the actual indictment.