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When You’ve Lost Turley…
April 29, 2026
Posted 2 hours ago by
Even Jonathan Turley is saying that this Comey case is beyond the pale: For over a decade, I have been one of Comey’s most vocal and consistent critics. I have dozens of columns criticizing his excesses and the damage that he has done to our system. For that reason, I would prefer to crawl into one of Comey’s conversant shells than write a column supporting him.
However, here we are. The fact is that I believe that this indictment is facially unconstitutional absent some unknown new facts. To convict Comey, the Justice Department will have to show that his adolescent picture was a “true threat” under 18 U.S.C. § 871 and § 875(c). It is not. The First Amendment is designed to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech rarely needs protection. It also protects bad and hateful speech. It even protects lies so long as those lies are not used for the purpose of fraud or other criminal conspiracies. In 1969, the Supreme Court declared a more direct threat protected under the First Amendment. In Watts v. United States, an 18-year-old anti-war protester exclaimed, “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J.” While the court did rule that “the statute [criminalizing presidential threats] is constitutional on its face,” it emphasized that “what is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech.” The court ruled that the expression of wanting to kill a president is “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a
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