The Trump Justice Department's criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey got a worrisome sign on Monday — and it wasn't a development in that case itself, but one in an unrelated case involving the National Park Service.
According to Politico, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss has issued a two-week restraining order prohibiting the park service from doing anything to interfere with a protest by the liberal group Accountability Now USA, which has for months been protesting President Donald Trump outside a federal courthouse near the National Mall — by flying a huge banner that says "86-47," with "47" being a reference to Trump and "86" a common slang term for getting rid of something.
The group has been harassed by the Secret Service, and more recently, a National Park Service official issued an email ordering the group to remove it as it is "obscenity" not protected by the First Amendment. This is in line with a number of Trump officials and allies who have claimed "86-47" is a call for violence against the president."
Moss, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, disagreed in his ruling.
“The Court does not doubt that political violence is on the rise and that it poses a grave threat not just to the targets of the threats but to the country as a whole," wrote Moss. "But the enormity of that problem does not change the meaning of Plaintiff’s speech, which by any reasonable measure merely advocated for the President’s impeachment and removal from office — that is, ‘to throw [him] out.’”
This could have grave implications for the administration's separate efforts to prosecute Comey, who was charged with violent threats for a social media post from last year depicting seashells arranged to spell out "8647." Comey deleted the post and apologized, but has made clear he was never advocating violence.
All of this comes as the DOJ quietly reassigned a prosecutor in charge of the Comey case.
