Trump DOJ Indicts Former FBI Director Comey

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0:33Love's Rewards. Save and earn at every turn. Terms apply. See website for details. I'm Antonia Hilton in this evening for Ari Melber. We start tonight with Donald Trump's Justice Department indicting former FBI Director James Comey. And not for the first time. This is the second case against Comey after the first attempt collapsed, putting one of Trump's most prominent perceived political enemies firmly back into the spotlight. The New York Times calling it, quote, another twist in the department's tortured efforts to satisfy the demands of Mr. Trump to target Comey, a longtime foe of the president.

1:10This charge is over a social media post made nearly one year ago of a photograph of seashells arranged to say 86-47. 86 is often slang used in places like restaurants for to remove. And Trump is, of course, the 47th president. The DOJ is claiming Comey did, quote, knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of and to inflict bodily harm upon Trump by posting that image, citing a statute that criminalizes threats to the president. The indictment comes as acting AG Todd Blanche currently helming the DOJ has been making splashy moves to permanently get that top job, Blanche answering questions about free speech versus true threats.

1:59For critics who say, where does free speech end and an actual threat of violence begin? I don't know what critics say that, especially today, but it's not a very difficult line to look at. And it's not, in my mind, a difficult line for one to cross over one way or the other. And so whether there is a defense, as you just described, maybe. Comey and his wife were tracked by Secret Service following the Seashell Post last year, a step that's usually reserved for serious threats. And Comey sat for an interview, but DOJ took no further action until now. Comey responding to the indictment in a brief video this afternoon.

2:47Nothing has changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let's go. And he spoke out on the actual post last year, saying he never intended for violence. And we stood over it and I said, you know, I think it's some kind of political message. And she said, you know, 86, when I was a server, she did a lot of work in restaurants, meant to remove an item from the menu when you ran out of ingredients. And I said, well, to me, as a kid, it always meant to leave a place, to ditch a place. I said, that's really clever. So then she said, you should take a picture of that.

3:24And I did. And I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it until I heard through her that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy. But I took it down. I don't even if I think it's crazy, I don't want to be associated with violence of any kind. And joining me now to examine all of this is James Sample, constitutional law professor at Hofstra University, and Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney and MSNOW legal contributor. It is great to have both of you. Joyce, so let's start with a question that Blanche essentially dodged at the presser earlier today, which is the crucial question here, how prosecutors are going to try to prove intent in this case.

4:07Comey, you hear him describe there, he immediately took this post down, very clearly stated that he had no violent intentions here. So how are prosecutor is going to prove otherwise? I think you've gone straight to the heart of the problem with the government's case here, which is that they will have to convince not just one person, not just a grand jury that hears only one side of the story, but a unanimous jury in a trial courtroom with a judge presiding that Jim Comey intended to kill or physically harm the president when he posted on Instagram. That feels like an insurmountable hurdle to me.

4:42You know, the standard federal prosecutors use that we talk about all the time, Antonia, is the one that's found in the justice manual that says you shouldn't indict a case unless you believe, you really firmly believe you have sufficient evidence to convict and to have that conviction affirmed on appeal. The government does not have that there, and it was an unreasonable exercise of prosecutorial discretion to take this case to the grand jury. So James, if this is unreasonable, if there is an insurmountable hurdle here. What's the real point of this? The real point is harassment. The real point is retribution.

5:19The point here is that we have two tracks at this point in our system of justice. And just in the last three weeks, we've had that encapsulated. You know, two weeks ago, this same Department of Justice, led by this same acting attorney general, sought to vacate the convictions of the worst of the worst related to January 6th, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the seditious conspiracy charges. Those are the individuals who weren't covered by the full pardon given to the 1 ,500 plus individuals otherwise responsible for January 6th. Last week, we saw this same Department of Justice go after the Southern Poverty Law Center for infiltrating hate groups.

6:02And today they decide to go after Jim Comey again, this time for a social media post. The message here is that Todd Blanche has an audience of one, and that is Donald Trump. It's not the rule of law. It's not what Joyce is referencing as the true and historic standards of the Department of Justice. Joyce, what do you imagine? I mean, we heard Cash Patel at that same presser, claim that there have been nine, 10 months or so of investigation here. You know, at one point, Blanche described the normal process to bring forward witnesses. I mean, implying that they're going to have an argument to make here around intent.

6:45And I guess I'm giving any shred of benefit of a doubt here. To the best of your ability, what can you imagine or your best informed guess, what does it look like as to what the federal government could have gathered here after trailing Comey with the Secret Service and allegedly investigating this over the course of the last year, which means there's overlap here between this case and the one that was previously tossed out. Yeah, absolutely. I think James has the correct answer about this. This is not about convicting James Comey in a courtroom. This is about intimidating and harassing him. And of course, it's not lost on any of us.

7:26You know that Todd Blanche is currently the acting attorney general of the United States. He's auditioning for the job. He wants to be the guy who gets to run the president's law firm, which is now seated on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Kennedy building where so many other people have served the American people. And it's really deeply disturbing. Unless the government has somehow acquired a smoking gun, Jim Comey writing in his diary or telling three reliable sources that he, when he posted that on Instagram, he wanted to see the president of the United States killed. The government didn't do any investigation in the last 10 months.

8:03And look, if they had a smoking gun like that, we would know about it because this Justice Department leaks and they would have been singing that from the top of the mountains. The other problem here to me, it seems, is that this whole thing is built on the assumption that we all agree that 86 means to murder, to kill someone. If you have any friends who've ever worked in the restaurant business, it kind of means to get rid of, to toss out food, to not put an ingredient in somebody's order. It doesn't mean you are murdering the food. And so I guess to what extent does the technical definition, the sort of publicly held standard of an understanding of a term apply in this case, Joyce?

8:47Yeah, this is why the government will be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey had the necessary intent. You know, I spent four years waiting tables. I know what 86 means. It means you're out of something and the chef is taking it off of the menu. Well, maybe other people use it in a more violent sense. But the jury will have to be persuaded that Comey didn't mean it in the more innocent application and that he intended to do violence. And that's completely out of keeping with Jim Comey's character. Anybody who worked with him when he was at either the FBI or the Justice Department is aware of his reputation and his effort to do the right thing, certainly not someone who ever called for violence.

9:30And so this is the kind of case where the defense will have character witness after character witness. And it doesn't really look like the government has anything to counter that. James, I know you have something to say on this, too. Well, Joyce said everything. Everything Joyce said is absolutely spot on. But let's get really legal here and technical just for just for a moment. The legal question here, the threshold legal question is, is 8647 a true threat? Now, that that is a term of art in the meaning of First Amendment law. True threats are not protected speech. So that's an important question.

10:06And true threats, true threats against the president, there's a stat, there are statutes and the statutes under which he was charged here are those statutes that that is a serious felony. The constitutional standard, though, for true threats in this context comes from a 2023 case that that's the most recent application of the true threat standard. And that case is called counterman v. Colorado, unless people think we're just talking about politics here, that decision was seven to two. Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Kavanaugh are in the majority. And as Joyce just noted, there is an objective component and a subjective component.

10:46And in order to prove their case, they're going to need to prove that this was objectively a true threat and subjectively that Jim Comey was at least recklessly disregarding of the idea that it could be perceived as a true threat. The idea that if this were ever to go to trial, which is its own threshold question, whether that ever happens, that, as Joyce said, they could get 12 jurors to unanimously convict on both elements of that is crazy. This is not a serious prosecution. It is a serious use of the Department of Justice for mispurposes. And to be clear, courts also statutes also prohibit the government from going after someone a second time just because their first attempt failed.

11:30Right. That is vindictive prosecution is a serious matter. I think there's a greater case here for vindictive prosecution than there is for the underlying offense. All right. Well, James and Joyce, you're sticking with me. We're going to continue breaking down this and a very bizarre DOJ filing that came out later in the show. New reports that Pete Hegseth is trying to hide the truth about the Iran war and Trump World's new attack on Jimmy Kimmel, plus Howard Dean on the public backlash to the ballroom and the new plan to put Trump's face on your passport. We're going to see you again in 90 seconds.

12:11And we are back with James Sample and Joyce Vance. And I want to get right into this new filing in the ballroom drama. I want to read a little bit from this filing because it was one of the strangest legal documents, Joyce, that I've ever read in my life. This is the DOJ trying to make the argument for Trump's ballroom. And we know that Trump, his allies, have been especially sort of doubling down on their justifications for this in the wake of what happened on Saturday in Washington, D.C. But here I just want to read one excerpt from this filing that is meant to explain why this ballroom that's going to cost 400 million dollars does not need congressional or any really sort of public approval.

12:57Part of it says, because it is Donald J. Trump, a highly successful real estate developer who has abilities that others don't, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed. Again, it's called Trump derangement syndrome. I mean, this is a document, Joyce, that to me reads not just as aggressive lawyering. I mean, it is the Justice Department basically taking on the voice and the personal grievances of the president. There are capitalized references to fake, you know, something we see the president post on True Social all the time. Barack Hussein Obama, who has nothing to do with the construction of this ballroom whatsoever.

13:38Have you ever seen anything like this? You know, I never have. And I didn't realize that they were so shorthanded at the Justice Department that they were letting the president write pleadings himself for signatures by senior leaders at DOJ. because this pleading is signed off on by Todd Blanche and by the Associate Attorney General. That in and of itself is very unusual. Blanche doesn't sign it. It's over his name. But the associate, the number three person in the department, actually has a wet signature on this pleading. And so for it to be of this tenor and of this extraordinarily low caliber, it doesn't make legal arguments that engage with the legal arguments that are at play in that case, which involves whether or not the historic trust is entitled to a slowdown, to a delay in building this until the larger legal issues can be determined by the courts.

14:32This is just an extraordinarily disturbing pleading. James, normally you think new motions are going to have new facts, new information in them. Did you see anything like that in there? No. And let's put this in a larger context, how this fits into the Trump presidency. and how it fits into their approach. It's a go-it-alone administration. You can debate whether there should be a ballroom. That's an interesting question. Reasonable people probably have different views on whether or not we should build a ballroom. Their security concerns are important. They are real. But the actual process of legislation is also real.

15:16Let's be clear. This is not... The reason that this is enjoined is not because people oppose the ballroom. The reason it's enjoined is that there is a process that you need to go through. And that's what makes this, the ballroom, consistent with so many other things. It's consistent with the idea that individuals deserve due process. It's consistent with the idea that the administration has no interest in judges being authorized or authorizing warrants. It's consistent with the tariff process. He wants to do everything himself without checking with anyone else. And by anyone else, we mean the other branches of government.

15:53What's new here is basically nothing. It is a reiteration of an administration that believes it can act entirely unilaterally. Joyce, can I ask you too about the timing here? And if you think it's a coincidence, both with this ballroom filing, where they describe in this filing, they assert the shooting could have never taken place in this new facility, new ballroom that they want to build. I mean, just like a kind of ridiculous counterfactual claim, again, sort of not becoming of who you think is working at the DOJ and writing a filing like this. But then also to look at what's happening with James Comey here.

16:31Both of these are coming immediately after this assassination attempt that neither anyone associated with the ballroom or Comey himself has any connection to. But it certainly feels a bit like the administration is taking political advantage of a very real crisis. I think we all like to hedge our bets on this and say it feels like this or it seems like this. The unfortunate reality is that it is this. And this is what it looks like when the separation that's supposed to exist between the White House and the Justice Department is not just breaking down, but has been completely cast aside so that the Justice Department, which has enormous power, Just as a young federal prosecutor in Birmingham, I had enormous power.

17:19When you're the attorney general or the director of the FBI, that power is magnified. And quitting that, making it available to the president to use for political purposes is extremely dangerous. It's how we end up in this moment. It's all connected. There's no such thing as coincidence when we look at this. And of course, the ultimate absurdity gets exposed here. When you think about the White House Correspondents Association dinner, which is put on by journalists celebrating the free press and its independence from government, the suggestion that Donald Trump can decide where they should have the dinner, when they should have the dinner, and under what circumstances run so contrary to what this entire moment is about.

18:05Look, the nation experienced, I think, in many ways, a near tragedy Saturday night. And I'm deeply grateful that no one from the president, through his cabinet, through innocent bystanders, were harmed in that incident. Political violence is never the answer. But using political violence for political purposes is in many ways just as dangerous. But this administration is now, you know, jumping up and down, standing on this incident as an excuse to do so many other things that it shouldn't be used for, whether it's indicting Jim Comey over seashells or using it as an excuse in a case where a judge is litigating serious legal issues, the issues that James has pointed out in the case involving the ballroom, trying to push those aside and say, just let Trump do it.

18:55He's the stable genius. He alone can fix it. Joyce Vance, James Sample, so grateful always to talk to you, too. You help me make sense of things that don't make much sense. Thank you both. Coming up, the Trump administration pressures Jimmy Kimmel with a new move critics warn in perils-free speech. Also ahead, Brayson report that Pete Hegseth may be hiding the truth of the Iran war. Plus, gas prices hit their highest point since the war started. And the State Department eyes a plan to put Trump's picture on your passport. Howard Dean is here.

19:36Say you've always wanted to have a backyard oasis. Here's the thing. If you get smart with your money, you can do things like that. With Empower, you can start making the most out of your money, so you can go out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard to have some fun with our money? So use Empower and get good at money, so you can be a little bad. Join their 19 million customers today at Empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored. With the Vivgard Hytrulo, Efgard Tigamod Alpha, and Hyaluronidase QVFC pre-filled syringe, self-injection is in your hands. It's your treatment routine.

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20:49New evidence tonight that Trump's war with Iran is inflicting serious damage to an already shaky economy. Gas is now at$4.18 a gallon. That's the highest since the start of the war. And 55 % of Americans say their financial situation is getting worse. They're even more pessimistic now than during COVID or the financial crash. These price increases that are happening all the time are not sustainable. There's no way I just saw someone pay$95 for gas. Like, that's literally a bill. And you know it's because of Diesel. It's because of an unnecessary war that Donald Trump got us into. We can't have health care.

21:34We can't fund our schools. We can't build roads and bridges or anything like that. We can't have money for that. But when it comes to building Donald Trump's ballroom, Lindsey Graham and the Republicans are right there. They will do it the second he demands it. And Trump world sure does indeed seem obsessed with that ballroom. And in fact, Lindsey Graham is now saying it's taxpayers. We should pay for it. We're going to introduce legislation that would authorize$400 million to be spent to secure the to build the presidential ballroom. I'd like to vote as soon as possible to accelerate what America needs, a secure facility for the president and others to meet in, to have a good time.

22:23Accelerate what America needs or accelerate what Trump wants. Graham seems to think that it is a good idea to ask taxpayers, the vast majority of whom, by the way, will never get the chance to step foot in this ballroom to foot the bill. Mind you, last year, Trump told us all that he would pay for it himself. It would actually be a beautiful addition. It's going to cost nothing. I'll spend the whole thing myself. We'll do a big, beautiful room, but we could use it at the White House. It's really all starting to feel a little bit like let them eat cake. With this news arriving as ProPublica reports, the White House is pushing for a rule change that would slash or end benefits for as many as 400 ,000 Americans on supplemental security income who are living with disabilities like Down syndrome or dementia and whose relatives receive SNAP benefits.

23:17Yeah, so Republicans might not say it to the president, but they know this is creating a brutal environment about six months away from the midterms. And joining me now is Howard Dean, former Vermont governor and DNC chair. So it is good to see you. Do you think Americans should be helping foot the$400 million bill for a ballroom while they're looking at$418 for some gas? That's kind of a no-brainer for everybody except Trump, who evidently doesn't have a brain to worry about. Look, all this stuff, generally speaking, when a party is in power and in the kind of trouble that Trump's is, the deadline for turning it around is September.

24:01I think Trump's doing everything he can to make sure the deadline's next week. He's not going to get out of this unless he steals the election, which I know he's going to try to do. But I don't see how he turns this around. The only question in my mind is whether we're going to pick up two chambers or one. So, I mean, what do you think the calculus is inside the minds of whether it's, you know, Trump and his cabinet officials or it's Lindsey Graham? I mean, what calculus can they be making here that voters simply will forget about these optics and the symbolism of a ballroom while they're struggling to put food on the table and to fill up their tanks?

24:38And that instead they're going to judge the Republican Party on what? I mean, like how well the Iran war is going? Like what what math is it? that they're doing here ahead of these midterms. It's just self-preservation. The Republican Party has become the party of hate and anger and obeying Trump. And right now, the electorate isn't going to put up with the Republican Party. I think they know that. So they're just getting what they can in Washington while the getting's good. So I have to ask you about Trump's State Department, this new reporting that they're reportedly planning to put Trump's face on American passports.

25:15I mean, he wants this new arch to go up in D.C. The ballroom is somewhat underway. You have this. It is a lot to process, I think, for your average voter. What did you think when you saw that? Yeah, I just I think the guy's crazy. I mean, I thought that for a while. And I think the problem is he has a real hold over about 23 percent of the American people. But that's about 50 percent of the Republican Party. and the people who work for them and the people in Congress who think they work for them are, you know, they've long since given up doing anything for the constituents and they're just saving their own butts.

25:53But in the end, it's not going to work. The American people have had it and I don't blame them. Now the question is, can we get the whip, the Democrats into shape so that we can present a colorful alternative and a capable alternative? And I, my, I like very much the youth movement that's going on in the Democratic Party with a whole new generation starting to take power and challenge incumbents. Interesting. Tell me more about that. The role that you think that youth movement is going to play in articulating what the Democratic Party is next, because, you know, there's this debate, right, that's been going on about whether it's enough for Democrats to basically let Trump make the case for them himself, you know, that he's going to keep making these blunders.

26:33The economy is, you know, faltering and people are in pain. So it'll just they'll be the obvious choice. But there are also a lot of young people in the Democratic Party who say, no, we need to actively make an argument, tell a story about who we are and what we're going to offer. If you look at the numbers of the Democratic Party, they're not that great. One of the reasons I thought that Momdani's win in New York was so important was not that I agree with his politics. It's that he was put into office by 25 and 35-year-olds. And that's starting to happen all over the country. I'm going to be fascinated now that Swalwell is out of the governor's race in California.

27:09who wins that race on the Democratic side. It's just, I think this new generation is taking power and whether we like it or not, that's going to happen. And there are going to be a lot of surprises. There are going to be a lot of veterans who get beaten primaries and don't come back. And I think there's a whole, the inside the bellway crowd has had it. I think people are fed up with them. Democrats and the Republicans, of course, have completely given up. But the Democrats got to earn this comeback. They can't just sit and wait, let the Republicans destroy themselves. We've got a 40-something-year-old guy, Zach Walls, running out in Iowa.