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Reason
Reason
Politics
Joe Lancaster

The James Comey Indictment Looks Like Vindictive Prosecution

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this week indicted former FBI Director James Comey on two felony counts of threatening the president. The case stems from a May 2025 Instagram post, in which Comey shared a photo of seashells arranged to spell "86 47"—86 being a slang term for getting rid of someone or something, and 47 a reference to Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States.

The case is meritless. It appears to be a vehicle for settling a personal grudge—Comey has been a target of Trump's ire for nearly a decade—and is so deficient that the former FBI director has an unusually strong argument for vindictive prosecution.

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