'Single dumbest charging decision I've ever seen': Ex-FBI official torches Comey case
Former FBI Director James Comey's indictment for supposedly threatening violence against President Donald Trump is completely ridiculous, said former FBI official and counterintelligence specialist Michael Feinberg on MS NOW's "Deadline: White House" Tuesday.
And the Trump administration officials bringing the charge know it, he added.
The charge stems from an Instagram post Comey made in May 2025 of seashells spelling out "8647" — with "47" being Trump, the 47th president, and "86" being a common phrase for getting rid of something, which is frequently used in political parlance and doesn't necessarily mean anything violent.
"I mean, again, [former Congressman] Matt Gaetz posted, 'We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy McDaniel McConnell; Better days are ahead...'" said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "Is there any reasonable interpretation that Matt Gaetz meant we'd killed them? I mean, is this — is this in law enforcement, an accepted phrase that is associated with threats of death?"
"No," said Feinberg. "I actually first learned the phrase when I was working the door at a bar in Chicago shortly after I graduated college, where we would use it to refer to ejecting unruly customers. So when I saw Jim Comey's post on Instagram from last year, I simply assumed it was a reference to removing the president from office."
"It is a very large leap to claim that that is a threat of violence," said Feinberg. "And because of that, I don't want the phrasing I'm about to use to make light of how malevolent and destructive of constitutional norms this Justice Department is being with this indictment. But this is the single dumbest charging decision I have ever seen in my entire law enforcement career, or in my even longer career as an attorney. This is the definition of bad faith."
Additionally, Feinberg continued, Comey "was a career DOJ and FBI official dedicated to upholding the Constitution and enforcing the law. But what's a little bit lesser known, although he talks about it in his book, is he and his brother were terrorized during a home invasion as children. The notion that somebody who went through what he did and served his country in the positions he did would ever inflict or even imply that he was going to inflict violence on another human being is beyond ludicrous."
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