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'Fatal flaw' revealed in Trump DOJ's new revenge case by ex-prosecutor
April 28, 2026
AI Analysis: Name Calling
Posted 2 hours ago by
A legal expert flagged a major problem in the indictment that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice returned against former FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday during an interview on CNN. Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, discussed the new indictment on CNN's The Lead with host Jake Tapper. The three-page indictment alleges two felony charges related to an Instagram post Comey made last year that featured an image of seashells that read 86 47, a phrase that some conservative commentators seemed to think meant that Comey wanted Trump to be killed.
Honig outlined the flaws in the indictment during the interview. This indictment is deeply flawed; I think it's probably fatally flawed, Honig said. And here's why. The law that Justice Department prosecutors have chosen to charge here requires an intent to kill or physically injure the president of the United States. I think if you look at this communication, these seashells, it's just way too ambiguous. What does 86 mean? Yes, there have been instances in pop culture and elsewhere where people have used 86 to mean kill, but there have been plenty of other instances, apparently far more instances, where it simply means to remove or to cross off a list, Honig said. And that ambiguity is going to be a major problem for prosecutors.
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Technique: Name Calling
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