Trump DOJ Gets Devastating News in Comey Case

Summary

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Legal AF by MeidasTouch

Episode: Trump DOJ Gets Devastating News in Comey Case

Date: June 3, 2026
Host(s): Michael Popok (MeidasTouch Network), with references to Ben Meiselas and Karen Friedman Agnifilo

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a significant First Amendment case in Washington, D.C., and its unexpected effect on the Department of Justice’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. The discussion focuses on a federal judge’s ruling defending the right to display “8647” in protest against Donald Trump—a ruling with direct implications for the ongoing case against Comey, who faced charges stemming from a similar symbolic use. The episode examines the legal principles at play, the context behind the charges, and the broader consequences for free speech and rule of law amid rising political tensions.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Context: The “8647” Case and Its Spillover to Comey

• [01:12] Michael Popok: Reports on Federal Judge Randolph Moss’s late-night ruling benefitting a small D.C.-based group, Accountability Now USA, which held continuous demonstrations outside a courthouse displaying a flag reading “8647”.
• “8647” (interpreted by some as “86” = remove, “47” = 47th president, referring to impeaching or removing Trump) controversially figured both in the protest and in the indictment of James Comey.
• The DOJ’s criminal case against Comey alleges that reposting a photo of seashells spelling “8647” was incitement or a threat against Trump.

2. First Amendment Protections and Judicial Analysis

• Judge Moss finds that context and intent matter—displaying “8647” is political speech, not a direct threat.

• [03:25] Michael Popok: Relays events where demonstrators were threatened with arrest by park rangers and approached by Secret Service over the 8647 flag, but were ultimately cleared when explained.

  • Quote — Secret Service exchange:
    • Agent: “We received a phone call because of the flag… 8647 and what it can stand for.”
    • Volunteer: “I never heard of it standing for anything other than Trump shouldn’t be in office.”
    • Agent: “All right, so you have no ill will towards…”
    • Volunteer: “I want Trump to live forever and rot in jail where he belongs. Okay, that’s it. That’s all I needed to know.” ([06:01])

• The court ruled on two principles: content-based restrictions on political speech are “inherently suspect,” and while true threats are intolerable, the bar for what constitutes a “true threat” is high and context-dependent.

3. The Meaning of “86” and Its Legal Ramifications

• Judge Moss traces “86” as a slang term from restaurant culture, meaning to get rid of or throw out, not to kill.
  • Quote — Michael Popok:
    • “I know what 86 means. In restaurant parlance…it means you’re out of something. It doesn’t mean take it in the back and assassinate it.” ([02:21])
• The phrase on the flag was not accompanied by violent imagery or rhetoric; Judge Moss notes the absence of any symbols of violence such as skulls or nooses, and the complete context points to lawful protest speech.

4. Key Quotes from Judge Randolph Moss’s Ruling

• “Content-based restrictions on political speech at a public forum…are inherently suspect…” ([08:29])
• “True threats to the life or safety of government officials are intolerable…But it has to be a true threat of violence. And the context therefore matters.” ([09:02])
• The judge issues a temporary restraining order: “The public interest group is likely to succeed on the merits that they have a First Amendment right to expression…” ([12:36])

5. Implications for the Comey Indictment

• The ruling arms Comey’s legal team with a federal precedent that “8647” can constitute protected speech, undermining the DOJ’s assertion of it as incitement.

• Context: Comey merely reposted a photo of seashells spelling “8647” on a beach—a casual, non-violent act.

  • Quote — Michael Popok:
    • “Nobody thinks the 6'7″ FBI director was placing seashells on the beach…and posted it and said, ‘interesting seashell collection I ran across today.’” ([13:16])

• Audio Clip of Trump (paraphrased):

  • When asked if he truly felt threatened by Comey’s post, Trump responds:
    • Host: “Do you really think that he was endangering your life or threatening your life with that?” ([14:02])
    • Trump: “Well, if anybody knows anything about crime, they know…86…it’s a mob term for kill him…you ever see the movies? 86…”
    • Host: “Do you really think your life was in danger?”
    • Trump: “Probably. I don’t know.” ([14:16])

6. Broader Political Context and the Stakes

• Michael Popok connects the dots to the current political environment—Trump’s loyalists getting key national security appointments, the risk of weaponization, and why judicial decisions protecting political speech are so crucial.
  • “The guy’s never served in the intelligence community in his life. But he’s not there for that. He’s there to go after Donald Trump’s political enemies…” ([15:01])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Michael Popok on restaurant slang:

  • “86 the chicken salad. That means you’re out of it. It doesn’t mean take it in the back and assassinate it.” ([02:21])

• Judge Randolph Moss (via Popok):

  • “The flag itself…contains no symbols of violence. It’s red, white and blue. It is simply adorned with white stars. It has no knives or skulls or nooses or other threatening symbols…” ([11:51])

• Secret Service/Volunteer Exchange:

  • “I want Trump to live forever and rot in jail where he belongs. Okay, that’s it. That’s all I needed to know.” ([06:01])

• Trump on “8647”:

  • “Well, if anybody knows anything about crime, they know…86…it’s a mob term for kill him… But do you really think your life was in danger? Probably. I don’t know.” ([14:02]–[14:17])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:12] – Michael Popok introduces the ruling and its relationship to Comey and protest groups
• [03:25] – Describes incidents with park rangers and Secret Service
• [06:01] – Secret Service clears 8647 protesters after questioning
• [08:29] – Popok highlights Judge Moss’s opinion on First Amendment law
• [11:51] – Analysis of what constitutes a true threat; Judge Moss’s summary of flag’s characteristics
• [12:36] – Granting of temporary restraining order to the protest group
• [13:16] – Application to Comey’s supposed “incitement”; details of his post
• [14:02]–[14:17] – Audio clip: Trump’s reaction to the Comey post and probe on perceived threat

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Tone and Style

• The episode blends legal rigor with conversational clarity and a clear pro–democracy, civil liberties stance.
• Michael Popok uses humor, pop culture references, and direct quotation of legal documents throughout.
• The hosts are frank about the political stakes and the significance of protecting speech rights under pressure.

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Summary Takeaway

Judge Moss’s ruling marks a potent defense of First Amendment rights and sets a precedent that could derail the DOJ’s case against James Comey. By centering on the context and content of political protest speech—especially in heated or symbolic forms—the decision underscores the high bar for criminalizing dissent in a democracy. The episode places this development squarely amid ongoing efforts to weaponize government against political opponents, focusing listeners on the enduring importance of an independent judiciary.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

by federal judge Randolph Moss in favor of a public interest group, a very small one at that, protesting in Washington in front of a courthouse. Perhaps the Department of Justice and Todd Blanch want 86. The indictment of James Comey, former FBI director. Because the very heart of that indictment, about a posting of a set of seashells on a beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which read 8647. And the attempt to indict James Comey because that is somehow a call for incitement of violence against the president or the call for his assassination that has been ripped to shreds by federal judge Randolph Moss in a case having nothing to do with James Comey. But that came out late last night in a matter involving accountability. Now usa you probably never have heard of them, but now you won't forget them. That group has been around the clock with volunteers out in front of a courthouse in D.C. on Constitution Avenue. 24-7365. You know, every day have been lobbying the public in the free exchange of ideas in the public square to impeach and remove Donald Trump. And somebody went on Amazon and got a giant flag. We have a picture of it here that said 8647. Now, as I've said before, I worked at a diner when I was studying for the bar. I know what 86 means. It means in a restaurant parlance that you're out of something. It's the back of the house telling the front of the house, that they're out of potato salad or tuna fish or French fries or whatever. 86 the chicken salad. That means you're out of it. It doesn't mean take it in the back and assassinate it. That's what the phrase means. And yet that's the heart of the indictment against the former director of the FBI. Came up for a, it came up as subject matter, First Amendment issue in this case, by accountability now, because they were denied a perm by the superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial parks and others because they had that flag. In fact, while this suit was pending, according to Judge Moss's memorandum opinion, which we have here, which we're going to be posting in legal AF substack. According to that, just after the case was filed, four park rangers, park employees in uniform came over and started threatening employees that they were going to be arrested for threatening the president. All right, so the, so you have two things at issue. The free exchange of ideas, First Amendment to be able to call for the impeachment, and whether that crossed the line given the context to call for incitement to do violence against the president or a threat against the president. And context matters. That's what Randolph Moss says. You know, couple of schoolteachers hanging out every day, exhausted, can't, you know, doing their First Amendment business in front of a courthouse without any other signals of violence. No nooses, no symbols of violence, no nothing. That is not 8647 meeting assassinate the president. According to Judge Randolph, this will now be used by the lawyers for James Comey who will now argue. We already have one federal judge who said that's a proper expression of First Amendment rights. How can that be at the, at the heart of a criminal case? Here's what Judge Randolph wrote. By the way, I'm Michael Popo. You're on the Midas Touch Network. I have a personal request and I wouldn't ask for it if we didn't need it. Become a free subscriber of Legal AF YouTube channel. Come over there now and help us continue to grow that pro democracy channel. Okay, here's from the memorandum opinion, 21 pages by the judge. First, he talks about how they have been volunteers. On page one, volunteers maintain the demonstration at the George Mead statue on Constitution Avenue by the courthouse 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at which they engage in face to face conversations with members of the public to call attention to the rise of fascism and demand the impeachment of President Trump. Okay, I mean, look, they've gone as far as to put up signs on page two that says Trump raped little girls, kids. If your parents are maga, they love child rapists. I mean, listen, that's a conversation, that's a First Amendment conversation, if you will. Uh, when it crosses the line is if there are not if it's obscenity or if it somehow calls for, for violence against the president. And particularly was they were upset on the Trump side with the 8647 flag that is waving there. And that led to Secret Service officers approaching a volunteer asking them about the sign, trying to get to the bottom of it. There's actually a conversation recorded between the Secret Service and the volunteer Secret Service. How are you? Volunteer I'm good. I'm recording this because they told me to. Officer that's fine. How's it going? Not a problem. Just so you're aware, this is all consensual. Volunteer yeah, we received a phone call because of the flag. In fact, the 8647 and what it can stand for. Volunteer I never heard of it standing for anything other than Trump shouldn't be in office. Officer all right, so you have no ill will towards. I want Trump to live forever and rot in jail where he belongs. Okay, that's it. That's all I needed to know. Officer we got a call so we just wanted to come down here. Volunteer I'm sorry somebody wasted your time. Things according to the judge on page five, things took a turn for the more confrontational when two different officers approached the same volunteer 25 minutes later and started reading them the Miranda warnings. Nothing happened for another two weeks. But then after the suit was filed, we had a bunch of cars pull up in front of four cars of U.S. park Police officers pulled up to plaintiffs demonstration site. This is page 5 and 6 of the memorandum opinion and started throwing around statutory codes, criminal code. Got it wrong, by the way, and said, yeah, we're here about 18 USC code 8741 threats against the president. Um, there is no 8741. They probably meant 871 about threats against the president. Now, the analysis here of the temporary restraining order which the judge has entered to stop for at least two more weeks, anybody denying them a permit so they don't have to leave because they're flying that flag. The judge says this comes down to two fundamental principles essential to a free country. This is on page 8. First, content based restrictions on political speech at a public forum, particularly restrictions that are premised on the impressions of government officials, are inherently Suspect you get to have these opinions even if they somebody off in the public square. Second, truth. True threats to the life or safety of government officials are intel intolerable. Full and open debate is necessary for democracy to work. But there's nothing democratic about threats of violence. But it has to be a true threat of violence. And the context therefore matters. They all agree, according to the hearing that the Judge held, that 8647 can, given its context, be innocent. Or it may be more menacing. It depends on content. Oh, I'm excited to tell you about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their brand new product, the pocket hose ballistic. Look, I'm tough on hoses. I drag them across the driveway, yank them around the yard and somehow they always kink or leak. But the pocket hose ballistic has been a game changer. It's super lightweight, easy to manage and easy to store. Turn the water on and it grows. Turn the water off and it shrinks back to pocket size. And this thing is built to last. The pocket hose ballistic is reinforced with a liquid crystal polymer used in bulletproof vests, making the anti burst sleeve practically bulletproof. And now for a limited time, when you purchase a new pocket hose ballistic, you'll get a free 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a free thumb drive nozzle. Just text legal to 64,000. That's legal to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text legal to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. The judge goes on page 11 to say where did it come from? It came from. According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary 86 is slang, meaning to throw out, to get rid of or to refuse service to. The phrase comes from the 1930s soda counters. That was like a luncheonette inside of a pharmacy, meaning that it was an item was sold out. May have been because it rhymes with nix nix. It was first used as a noun to an item that had been sold out. But by the 1950s it was also used to refuse to serve a customer, probably during the civil rights era. Now he says that it can't be an abstract analysis on page 13, Judge Moss says the question whether 8647 constitutes a true threat cannot be resolved to the abstract without context. The flag itself in this case contains no symbols of violence. It's red, white and blue. It is simply adorned with white stars. It has no knives or skulls or nooses or other threatening symbols. You know, like the ones that were used on Jan6 by the insurrectionists. Even more to the point the flag was displayed outside the courthouse as part of an ongoing demonstration seeking Trump's impeachment and removal from office. Right. Impeach, convict, remove, impeachment, throw out. That's the language that's being used at the courthouse. Judge also said it can't be seen as incitement to do violence given the context. And finally, when he does, the analysis of the four factors to determine whether a temporary restraining order should be put in place. Likelihood of success on the merits. He says the public interest group is likely to succeed on the merits that they have a First Amendment right to expression and that they're not crossing over into obscenity or incitement to riot or do violence or a threat, a direct, true threat against the president, that they have irreparable harm in having their First Amendment rights violated. They have an inadequate remedy at law. They don't want money. They want to be able to demonstrate and that the balance of equities and public interest is in their favor because we don't want to squelch core political speech. So says Randy Moss. And in response, and in return for a $1 bond, he's, he's giving the plaintiffs a restraining order for the next 14 days so they can display the 8647 flag at their site. This helps, of course, the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who was walking the beach near his vacation home in the Outer Banks of Outer Banks of North Carolina, beautiful location, by the way, came across some sort of seashell collection. Not one that he did. Nobody thinks the 6 foot 7 FBI director was placing seashells on the beach and posted it and said, interesting seashell collection I ran across today. We'll put it up on the screen. Incitement to do violence to true threat against the president. We must indict now. First Amendment political expression. It wasn't even his. He was reposting. If context truly matters, as Judge Moss just said, think of the context. A casual posting on social media, it wasn't surrounded by nooses or weaponry or guns or a target or a bullseye or anything like that. It was just seashells on the beach. Even Trump didn't think it was a threat. Here's a clip of Trump effectively admitting that he wasn't threatened by the posting. Play the clip.

[C]

He's now been charged a second time, this time over a social media post with seashells that said 8647. Do you really think that he was endangering your life or threatening your life

[D]

with that, well, if anybody knows anything about crime, they know. 86, you know, in 80, it's a mob turn for kill him. You know, you ever see the movies? 86 but do you really think your

[C]

life was in danger?

[E]

Probably.

[D]

I don't know.

[B]

So we got that going on. So sometimes cases that were, it's very interesting cases that we're not following that closely, but maybe should have end up helping and strengthening the hand of criminal defendants who are also targets of Donald Trump in this administration. And we got to keep a close eye on this because you know, now that Donald Trump has just named the Bill Pulte, right, the Nepo baby amateur who's running Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, the mortgage liquidity entities, to be the acting Director of National Intelligence. The guy's never served in the intelligence community in his life. But he's not there for that. He's there to go after Donald Trump's political enemies and make criminal referrals and run around and try to undermine people's confidence and in the voting system and the vote and the vote for the midterms. That's his number one objective. So, so that's why cases like this and judges like Randy Moss are really, really important to our democracy and the protection of the rule of law. You're here on Midas Touch. Follow my work here, Follow my work on Legal AF YouTube channel. Hit the free subscribe button. Help us to continue to grow our pro democracy channel. Until my next report, it's Michael Popak.

[F]

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