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ACCORDING TO LIZ - In a bizarre twist to Trump’s vendetta against his first FBI director, the president’s Department of (in)Justice secured a second indictment against James Comey after a previous attempt fizzled.
Last week, in reaction someone who shared the sentiments of Comey and millions of other Americans spray-painted a 15 by 30 foot “86 47” at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Comey became a prime political target of the president’s egocentric ire following his decision that Hillary Clinton would not face charges over handling of classified information on her private e-mail server then, in 2020, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the links between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.
After hounding the previous U.S. Attorney from office for not being sufficiently aggressive in pursuing Trump’s retributive justice, the president plopped Lindsey Halligan, a commercial insurance lawyer and his personal lawyer on the classified documents charges with absolutely no prosecutorial experience, into the role of interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, the court known as the “rocket docket” for how quickly federal cases move from filing to trial.
This appointment was subsequently ruled illegal, terminating a number of high-profile cases among them Letitia James – New York’s Attorney General whose office won the civil suit for fraud against the Trump Organization that resulted in it being assessed over $400 million in fines – and Comey.
Placing his fat thumb yet again on the scales of justice, using “his” DOJ to continue persecuting his perceived nemesis, Trump tools in the Eastern District of North Carolina brought this second indictment against Comey.
This is bigger than simple petulance. It’s a case of revenge and retribution superseding Constitutional rights.
As Barack Obama pointed out in an interview with Stephen Colbert last month, the attorney general is supposed to be the people’s lawyer “...not the president’s consigliere.”
Claiming a photo of seashells arranged on a North Carolina beach a year ago to read “86 47” – that Comey called just a clever way to express a point of view shared by millions of Americans – as a full-on threat against Trump seems just a tad histrionic, even from Trump’s over-the-top knee-jerk DOJ.
What has happened to freedom of speech?
And just who is footing the bills for all of the president’s abuses of the court system, anyway?
Comey certainly posted the image a year ago, but he then took it down, albeit after it gained some notoriety.
As a criticism of Trump’s presidency “86 47” surfaced following the January 2025 inauguration, with “86” slang to toss out and “47” being the 47th president.
The latter term is pretty neutral. But escalating “86” to the level of a targeted death threat?
In the film industry, we used it all the time as shorthand for what was to be thrown out when closing up a temporary production office. It wasn’t disparaging, just something not worthwhile to put in storage for a year or a decade. I hesitate to think what Trump will be like in ten years.
The term’s origin reportedly dates back almost a century when it was soda fountain jargon for “We’ve run out of that item, so strike it from the menu.”
From there the expression migrated to other restaurant kitchens and then into the wider world – businesses, schools, and homes.
And, other than in Trump’s inner élite, use of “86 47” is not uncommon. If every such use was to be prosecuted, there won’t be resources left for the Justice Department to create other carnage.
Tap-dancing as fast as he can, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said he had other evidence… Like Comey deleting the post was de facto guilt?
Has Trump’s DOJ become the thought police of 21st century America?
And of symbolic action since they are now investigating a protester for pointing her fingers at her eyes in the universal “I’m-watching-you” gesture.
What comes next? Incarcerating anyone suspected of free thought for breathing?
If the administration fears free speech as threats, why did Trump not arrest the rest of the January 6 rioters instead of releasing those already convicted?
Why not sweep up the tribe of violence-instigators in the MAGA-verse social media sites and their brethren on the left.
Because that’s freedom of speech?
Does speech only become un-free if it criticizes the sitting president?
That would put him above God and Jesus.
At least in this country where blasphemy is not a crime – yet.
If so, why bother with titles like King or Emperor? Just remake the world as his Omniscience-ness, employing miracles, and be done with it.
But what’s the satisfaction of having all your dreams come true without the sexual frisson of the cruel subjugation of others to demonstrate dominance, and that the rules of law can’t constrain one’s actions?
Courtesy of 47, as Bruce Springsteen – the Boss – has questioned consistently on his current tour, is the United States “…no longer the land of the free, the home of the brave”?
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
