With Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche temporarily at the helm, the Department of Justice is once again turning its guns on one of Donald Trump’s old enemies.

Former FBI director James Comey was indicted yesterday for the high crime of posting an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to spell out the numbers “86 47”. The DOJ says that this constitutes “knowingly and willfully mak[ing] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the president of the United States”. The number 86, in slang dating back to at least the Thirties, means to get rid of something. Comey and those supporting him would say that he merely wants Trump out of office. Trump and Blanche think the meaning is more sinister: a call for the assassination of the President.

After the third attempt on his life in less than two years, it is understandable that Trump would be on edge over calls for his removal from the scene. But he must realize that the US and its grand tradition of free speech mean that it is very difficult for someone to be jailed for things that he says. This is an important part of the American civic culture, and one from which Trump has himself benefited.

The question boils down to whether “86 47” is an explicit call for violence against the President, one that is likely to result in actual harm. It is hard to imagine that any prospective assassin would be pushed over the edge by some cringeworthy Resistance vacation pictures. People use evocative language all the time. Imagine, for example, an outgoing president who tells a crowd that the election was stolen from him and that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Is he responsible when they storm the Capitol?

Trump would likely say no, but would insist that Comey’s seashell collage represents a clear and present danger to him. One struggles to find a consistent rule of law here. Instead, those on the President’s side get treated well. Those pitted against him receive the rigorous attention of the Department of Justice.

Of course, Trump has been on the other end of this partisan lawfare. He was indicted by prosecutors in New York and Georgia on legal theories that were nearly as tendentious and politically motivated as Comey’s. But that assumes he previously had the greatest respect for the neutral application of the law, and that his faith was only recently broken by overzealous Democratic prosecutors. There is no evidence to suggest that this is so.

Instead, we have a President who never much minded the law being bent, who now sees his own unjust persecutions as reason to drop all pretense of impartial justice. But even for Trump, this is overreach: the DOJ already tried to indict Comey in Virginia for making false statements to Congress and obstructing justice, and a judge threw it out. There is no reason to believe that the new indictment will be any different. If anything, the case is weaker.

When Pam Bondi was fired as attorney general, it was mooted that the cause was her unwillingness to indulge the President’s whims in matters like this. If so, Bondi’s critics should consider giving her some credit, in retrospect. And Blanche, however capable he may have been as Trump’s personal lawyer before 2025, should consider that his new job comes with an oath to the Constitution, not one man.

When this indictment is dismissed — and it will be — Blanche or whoever succeeds him as attorney general should learn that lesson and recall that oath. The answer to lawfare is not more lawfare; it is a return to equal justice under the law.