Former FBI director James Comey has provoked a First Amendment firestorm with a display of sea shells that included the sequence: “86 47.” Many supporters of President Donald Trump note that in popular culture “86” frequently is used as slang for eliminating (killing) someone. “47,” they conclude, obviously refers to Trump, the 47th president of the United States. In other words, Trump supporters charge that Comey is inciting terrorists to kill the president. Trump, himself, accused Comey of calling “for my assassination”. The Secret Service apparently took the matter seriously enough that the agency has opened an investigation.
Everyone needs to take a step back and calm down. With considerable justification, critics have charged that recent administrations, especially those of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, harassed political opponents and badly damaged the First Amendment. There is little question that officials in those administrations sometimes sought to intimidate critics and chill debate in the news media and the general public. Pro-Trump figures complained loudly about such behavior at the time, and subsequent revelations have validated some of their complaints. For example, conservative activists were subjected to an unusual number of visits by law enforcement personnel, including FBI and IRS agents, for reasons that ranged from vague allegations of possible misconduct to clearly protected, albeit controversial, First Amendment activity.
In November 2021, information from a whistleblower surfaced that the FBI had authorized a new “threat tag” be applied to parents and other people who confronted school officials. Authorities apparently even recorded the license plate numbers of attendees who voiced harsh criticisms of liberal policymakers at local school board meetings. The official justification was to take preemptive steps to discourage even the most embryonic manifestations of “domestic terrorism.”
Evidence about the Biden administration’s attempts to harass or intimidate critics became even more extensive and alarming once Trump appointees took office and opened key files that had been concealed from the public. Tulsi Gabbard, the new Director of National Intelligence. released a classified document that contained the previous administration’s strategy for combating “disinformation” and other alleged evils. An especially worrisome passage authorized law enforcement and intelligence agencies to monitor “worrisome noncriminal conduct.” That mission raised a number of questions: Worrisome to whom? Worrisome, why, if the conduct was not illegal? What is the justification for spying on people who engage in behavior that even the government concedes is non-criminal?
Such policies on the part of earlier administrations were alarming and should have encountered intense criticism and resistance across the political spectrum. Trump and his supporters had every right to be upset. However, with the new Comey incident and several other matters, the Trump administration appears to be engaging in similar conduct and abusing its power. For example, law firms that sided with the Biden administration’s position on various legal disputes are being subjected to transparent retaliation and blackmail.
Smearing and harassing Comey by alleging that he is encouraging a plot to assassinate Trump fits that same unsavory pattern of political dirty tricks. It is appropriate to denounce Comey for circulating an inflammatory and entirely inappropriate message. “Joking” about “86ing” someone should be considered out-of-bounds with respect to meaningful debate on any topic. Given the context that Trump was indisputably the target of two assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign makes Comey’s behavior even uglier. The television images of blood running down Trump’s face after the attack in Pennsylvania are still fresh in the minds of Americans. Even if Comey were an ordinary citizen, his attempt to extract “humor” from the idea of a presidential assassination is extremely offensive. Given that he was the head of an agency that has a long, well-deserved reputation for abusing civil liberties, Comey’s willingness to joke about another possible assassination attempt is exceptionally repulsive. Any decent person would be justified in denouncing and shunning him.
However, he does not deserve to become a target of harassment and censorship. Venturing down that path would further damage America’s already weakened system of civil liberties and the rule of law. Trump’s supporters need to step away from that beckoning authoritarian abyss.
Dr. Ted Galen Carpenter is a contributing editor to 19FortyFive and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and the Libertarian Institute. He also served in various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. Dr. Carpenter is the author of 13 books and more than 1,300 articles on defense, foreign policy and civil liberties issues. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).
