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James Comey gets indicted (again)
Trump’s revenge ploys are getting kookier.
Cameron Peters is a staff editor at Vox.
Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is taking another run at its enemies list.
What happened? On Tuesday, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted for a second time on new federal charges; prosecutors allege that a 2025 social media post Comey made, showing seashells arranged to read “86 47,” was “a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon,” Donald Trump.
Trump is the 47th president, and “86” is broadly understood to be service industry slang for rejecting or removing something or someone, depending on the context — but prosecutors, and some Republicans, have instead chosen to interpret it as a call for Trump’s assassination.
At the time, Comey said he was unaware of any violent connotations to the term and quickly deleted his post in response to backlash.
Why Comey? Trump has long wanted to punish Comey for his role in investigating ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Specifically, Tuesday’s indictment is a transparent retread of a similar attempt last year, when the Trump administration briefly — and incompetently — indicted Comey on a different set of flimsy charges, which were subsequently dismissed.
(It’s not even, we should note, the only such attempt today: The administration also stepped up its attack on late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s employer, ABC, on Tuesday, after both the president and first lady Melania Trump went after Kimmel for a joke. Kimmel was briefly forced off the air by the administration last fall.)
What’s the big picture? Earlier this month, Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, replacing her with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former member of Trump’s personal legal team.
Trump’s frustrations with Bondi were well-known; in September, he posted a message addressed to her, complaining that “Nothing is being done” against his enemies. Blanche, who is up for the permanent AG job, is clearly trying to remedy that as fast as possible, never mind how ridiculous the charges.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Here’s some good climate news from my colleague Bryan Walsh, which first ran in his aptly named Good News newsletter: After more than a century of dominance, coal has been unseated as the world’s leading source of electricity — by renewable energy. You can read all about it here with a gift link. Have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
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