Comey appears in court in Trump threat case that’s likely to pose a challenge for Justice Department

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“Here, ‘86’ is ambiguous — it doesn’t necessarily threaten violence and the fact that it was the FBI Director posting this openly and notoriously on a public social media site suggests that he didn’t intend to convey a threat of violence,” John Keller, a senior Justice Department official who led a task force to prosecute violent threats against election workers, wrote in a text message.

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The case was charged in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the location of the beach where Comey has said he found the shells. He made a brief appearance Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the state where he lives.

Comey didn’t speak or enter a plea during the appearance. But his legal team teed up at least one argument expected to be invoked, with defense lawyer Patrick Fitzgerald saying attorneys would argue that the prosecution is vindictive and selective and would ask prosecutors to save communications relevant for that motion.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick also rejected the government’s request to set conditions on Comey’s release, calling it unnecessary.

As FBI director, Comey oversaw the early months of an investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election. Comey was fired by Trump months into the president’s first term, and the president and his supporters have sought retribution ever since over the Russia investigation.

What the law says on threats

The Supreme Court has held that statements are not protected by the First Amendment if they meet the legal threshold of a “true threat.”

That requires prosecutors to prove, at a minimum, that a defendant recklessly disregarded the risk that a statement could be perceived as threatening violence. In a 2023 Supreme Court case, the majority held that prosecutors have to show that the “defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements.”

The court has also found that hyperbolic political speech is protected.

In a 1969 case, the justices held that a Vietnam War protester did not make a knowing and willful threat against the president when he remarked that “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J,” referring to President Lyndon B. Johnson. The court noted that laughter in the crowd when the protester made the statement, among other things, showed it wasn’t a serious threat of violence.

Regarding the current case, Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Trump said Wednesday he believes his life was “probably” in danger as a result of the post, telling reporters in the Oval Office, “If anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86 — it’s a mob term for ‘kill him.’”

What the government will try to prove

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia, said the government will likely try to prove that Comey should have known better as a former FBI director.

“I think they’re going to try to circumstantially say that you were head of the FBI, you knew what these terms meant and you said them out to the whole world as a threat to the president,” Fishwick said, though he noted such an argument would be challenging in light of Comey’s First Amendment defenses.

Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service last year, and the fact he was not charged with making a false statement suggests prosecutors do not have evidence that he lied to agents, Fishwick said.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday that “despite being one of Comey’s longest critics, the indictment raises troubling free speech issues. In the end, it must be the Constitution, not Comey, that drives the analysis and this indictment is unlikely to withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

“If it did,” he added, “it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States.”

Blanche defended the prosecution at an unrelated news conference Wednesday but said the case would ultimately be for a jury to decide.

“I know that a grand jury returned a two-count indictment. I know this case was investigated for the past year. I do not know what a jury of his peers will do at a trial that will come at some point in the future,” he said.

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Tucker and Richer reported from Washington.

Michael Kunzelman, Eric Tucker And Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press