James Comey dog-whistling his desire for President Donald Trump to be assassinated via a now-infamous “86 47” social media post — only to play dumb after well-deserved backlash — is a final befitting act by the disgraced former FBI director in his long-running campaign to destroy the president. Justice demands he answer for this outrageous act, particularly because the holier-than-thou G-man has to date completely skirted justice.
Indeed, Comey, among those most responsible for eviscerating the rule of law and undermining our republic over the last decade, has evaded any accountability for his sordid and malevolent conduct — besides being fired during the Trump I administration. Yet consider the parade of horribles for which Comey bears culpability.
The Russiagate hoax originated and festered under Comey’s leadership. Comey briefed the incoming president on the wholly uncorroborated Steele dossier days before his first inauguration — a briefing whose leak triggered the media to report on the garbage oppo research package. This in turn undermined the incoming administration and helped foment the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. The FBI would of course use the dubious dossier to justify the unjustifiable spying on the Trump campaign through Carter Page, via a civil rights-obliterating FISA warrant that Comey and his comrades zealously pursued.
Comey also orchestrated the brazen ambush interview of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in a bid to set a perjury trap that would lead to his demise and destabilize the administration. Flynn was poised to radically restructure the deep state. That’s one of the reasons why he was among its first targets in the Trump administration.
Instead of being able to help the president root out the rot and corruption and reorient the national security and intelligence apparatus toward America’s national interest, Flynn ended up having his career destroyed, his reputation tarnished, and his finances ruined — despite having committed no crime. He underwent a devastating sham trial before a judge who, botching the facts of the case, slandered the storied terrorist-hunting Flynn as a traitor, and has never received restitution for this ordeal.
Comey delivered public testimony to Congress discrediting President Trump months into his presidency by claiming he was under investigation as part of the Trump-Russia collusion “probe” Comey’s FBI cooked up, while privately reassuring the president he was not a target of investigation.
Shortly thereafter, when Trump fired Comey, the ex-FBI Director leaked memos memorializing private conversations with the president to damage him. This included leaking information to try and ensure a special counsel would be sicced on Trump. Yet Comey faced nothing but the censure of the Justice Department’s inspector general for these unauthorized disclosures.
Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller led to a crooked investigation that diverted substantial time and resources and created a cloud over the Trump presidency during its first two-plus years — validating Comey’s scheming and manipulation. The comparative kid gloves with which Comey handled Hillary Clinton-related investigations was the cherry on top. Special Counsel John Durham exposed some of this corruption in his final report, yet he never even compelled Comey to interview.
If Comey were held to the standard that he and his fellow coup plotters and lawfare insurrectionists have held Trump, he likely would have been prosecuted many times over for his abuses of power; his leadership in what amounted to a conspiracy to destroy a president — including to systematically violate or deprive the commander in chief and those in his orbit of their rights; and his running of information operations against the American people aimed at interfering in our domestic politics and defrauding the country.
His latest post would no doubt be pursued as incitement to violence — something Comey himself would seem to advocate were he not the subject of investigation. He would almost assuredly be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. 871, under which those who threaten the president’s life may be fined, imprisoned for up to five years, or both.
Comey’s animus towards Trump is beyond well-established. He is not ignorant of what 86 47 means. Nor is he unaware of the fact that the president faced two assassination attempts in the last year. For all these reasons, an argument could be made that Comey is being shown grace by the Trump administration in merely being investigated by the Secret Service over a post obviously calling for his assassination to his followers.
If he is to be interviewed, as my colleague at RealClearPolitics Susan Crabtree has suggested may occur, one can bet he won’t be ambushed and trapped in a bid to do to him what his FBI did to Flynn. Odds are, Comey will enjoy the protections of a system that he did not afford his own political opponents and avoid prosecution.
Minimally, however, authorities must fully probe his acts. Legitimate processes serve as a modicum of punishment.
Still, it is not clear how the likes of Comey will be deterred going forward absent equivalent scrutiny and punishment under the law. That is the devastating position in which he and his fellow “resisters” have put the country, torching the institutions and the Constitution in a bid to preserve and protect their own power.
Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
