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Donald Trump<\/strong> once suggested that \u201cSecond Amendment people<\/a>\u201d were the only ones who could stop Hillary Clinton<\/strong>. He mused last summer about how Liz Cheney<\/strong> might feel when \u201cguns are trained on her face<\/a>.\u201d He said at a rally that to shoot him, someone would need to shoot through the media, \u201cand I don\u2019t mind that so much.\u201d And, when asked by ABC News\u2019 Jonathan Karl<\/strong> what he thought of the January 6 rioters chanting \u201chang Mike Pence<\/strong>,\u201d Trump responded<\/a> simply, \u201cWell, the people were very angry.\u201d<\/p>\n So, excuse us for being a little incredulous that Trump is now accusing former FBI director James Comey<\/strong> of putting a hit on him when he posted an Instagram photo Thursday of seashells on the beach arranged to spell out \u201c86 47.\u201d<\/p>\n The number \u201c86\u201d is most commonly defined<\/a> as meaning “to throw out\u201d or “to get rid of.” But Trumpworld skipped right over those more obvious definitions and decided Comey\u2019s message could only mean one thing: \u201cJust James Comey causally (sic) calling for my dad to be murdered,\u201d Donald Trump Jr.<\/strong> posted on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n Comey quickly took the post down, writing in a statement on Instagram<\/a> that he \u201cdidn\u2019t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence\u201d and that he \u201coppose[s] violence of any kind.\u201d Comey didn\u2019t respond to Vanity Fair<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n By Thursday night, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem<\/strong> had announced an investigation<\/a> into Comey\u2019s alleged call \u201cfor the assassination of @POTUS Trump\u201d and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard<\/strong> was calling for Comey\u2019s imprisonment.<\/a> On Friday, Trump himself was making the most of it on Fox News. “He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant,\u201d Trump said<\/a>. \u201cThat meant ‘assassination.'”<\/p>\n Was it dumb of Comey to post a message so primed for willful misinterpretation by the right, particularly given they\u2019ve played this same game of dictionary roulette with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer<\/a>? Yes. Is it just as dumb for the Trump administration to willfully misinterpret a seashell message as a death threat? Also yes. Is it extra dumb that this ordeal has America frantically Googling<\/a> the definition of \u201c86\u201d like we, as a nation, are all about to give the world’s worst best man speech? You bet! Merriam-Webster<\/em> president Gregory Barlow<\/strong> told Vanity Fair<\/em> that, as of Friday morning, \u201c86\u201d was the most frequently searched term on its website. According to Barlow, their research shows “it probably comes from 1930s soda counters, where it began as rhyming slang of nix, which means \u2018to veto\u2019 or \u2018to reject.’\u201d<\/p>\n The irony, of course, is that no one has accused the liberal pearl-clutchers of stirring up faux outrage over semantics more than Trump. Of course, he wasn\u2019t suggesting \u201cSecond Amendment people\u201d shoot Clinton, his 2016 campaign argued<\/a>; he was just encouraging them to vote! He wasn\u2019t calling for Cheney to face a firing squad; he was pointing out that \u201cwarmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves,\u201d his 2024 campaign said<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the problem with this administration is that just because something\u2019s dumb doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not dangerous. The outrage over Comey\u2019s post is a mere pretext for the Trump administration to do what it has established a solid track record of doing: Making perceived political enemies pay for their words.<\/p>\n Last month, the president ordered<\/a> Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/strong>, as well as Noem, to investigate Chris Krebs<\/strong>, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who countered Trump\u2019s unfounded claims<\/a> that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump has ordered another investigation into former DHS official Miles Taylor<\/strong>, who served in his first administration and wrote an anonymous book warning about Trump’s dangers.<\/p>\n And earlier this month, the FBI also opened<\/a> a criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James<\/strong><\/a>, who prosecuted Trump in a civil fraud case<\/a>, for alleged mortgage fraud. James has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n Whatever the findings of these investigations turn out to be, the fact that they exist at all has real consequences for their targets. Krebs has left his job, saying that fighting the order would require his \u201ccomplete focus and energy<\/a>.\u201d Taylor told NBC News<\/a> that he\u2019s received a barrage of death threats and has been told by security experts to update his will. \u201cPeople need to know how real it is to be blacklisted by the president,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWhat I worry about is that they will try to use this tactic, this bludgeon of the bully pulpit of the presidency, to go shut people up.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk<\/strong> has only just been freed<\/a> from six weeks in federal detention after being snatched off the street for the apparent offense of writing an op-ed<\/a> criticizing her university\u2019s response to the war in Gaza. Other international students, including Mahmoud Khalil<\/strong>, have similarly been detained<\/a> for their speech and remain in custody or have been forced to leave the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n We now live in a world in which the president pardons people convicted of actual political violence (and, incidentally, also rape and sexual abuse of a child<\/a>) as long as they support him, while simultaneously casting a seashell message from someone who doesn’t as the highest crime of all. If recent history is any indication, Comey\u2019s problems have just begun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n