“8647.”

Those numbers are spelled out — in seashells — in a May 15 Instagram photo posted by former FBI director James Comey.

The meaning doesn’t seem unclear. To “86” someone, as I recall from my brief late-1980s career in nightclub security, means to remove and ban someone from a bar or club for bad behavior. “47,” of course, refers to Donald Trump, 47th president of the United States.

Cute? I guess. Comey doesn’t like Trump, Trump doesn’t like Comey, and neither of them ever skips an opportunity to tell us so. Big whoop. Any serious editor would classify a story on the seashell photo as “dog bites man.” It’s just not “news” by any traditional definition.

Trump, however, has mastered the art of creating fake “news” as a distraction whenever the real news (for example, billions of dollars in Qatari bribes, failure to make any progress, after more than 100 days, in ending a war he said would be over within 24 hours of his inauguration, a congressional stall on his “big beautiful [spending] bill,” etc.) makes him look bad.

Thus “86”  suddenly and magically became code — to Trump and his MAGA cultists, anyway — for “assassination,” and Comey got called in, with full “news cycle” fanfare, to explain himself to the Secret Service.

There are at least three ways, other than the assassination that the number in no way implies, to “86” a sitting president. One is impeachment and conviction. Another is invocation of the 25th Amendment by the vice president and a majority of the cabinet (or other congressionally defined body) to declare him unable to serve. The third is resignation under pressure from a credible threat of one of the first two.

Comey’s “8647” was neither a call to assassinate, nor a threat to assassinate, Trump. Period.

“The Constitution and the rule of law are not partisan political tools,” Comey writes in A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. “Lady Justice wears a blindfold. She is not supposed to peek out to see how her political master wishes her to weigh a matter.”

It’s hard to dredge up much sympathy for Comey. He arrived at that sentiment long after he should have. Long after, for example, his announcement that an FBI investigation into illegal use of a private email server to transmit and store classified information had established the commission of the crimes, but that the perpetrator wouldn’t be prosecuted because, and only because, that perpetrator’s name was “Hillary Clinton.”

No blindfold there. Comey peeked, saw that his political masters didn’t want a Democratic presidential candidate charged with crimes she had provably committed, then “weighed” the matter as ordered.

Comey’s past failure to charge real criminals with real crimes does not, however, mean that he should be accused of a fake one.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“WELCOME TO QATAR-A-LAGO.”

Thus read a sky banner dragged behind a small plane over US president Donald Trump’s Palm Beach resort/home on May 14 as Trump toured the Middle East and spent some media time defending his $3 billion golf resort deal with, and planned acceptance of a $400 million luxury 747 (to use as Air Force One for the remainder of his term, then deed to his presidential library) from, the Qatari regime.

Public furor (to the extent such exists) over Trump’s business ties with, and acceptance of constitutionally prohibited “emoluments” from, the Qataris centers around the notion that what we’re dealing here with is “corruption.”

I disagree.

To “corrupt” a person or thing (per the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary) is to “draw aside from the path of rectitude and duty … debase or render impure by alterations or innovations.”

In order for the Qataris to “corrupt” Trump, he’d necessarily have displayed some semblance of “rectitude” prior to their interactions.

Americans knew that was far from the case before they elected him to the presidency the first time in 2016, and gathered eight more years of demonstration proofs to the contrary before electing him a second time in 2024.

The golf resort deal and the 747 “donation” may be immoral and illegal, but that’s just the story of Trump’s entire adult life in business, entertainment, and politics. There’s nothing honest or dutiful there for the Qataris TO corrupt. They’re just cashing in on his best-known character trait.

Nor is Trump an outlier in American politics.

Mark Twain once noted in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, “it could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” He should have included the entire political class.

When members of Congress aren’t getting caught with  bribe cash  in their freezers (William Jefferson of Louisiana) or their boots (Robert Menendez of New Jersey), they’re getting suspiciously wealthy versus their government salaries by e.g. trading stocks affected by the legislation they consider.

When members of the Supreme Court get caught accepting bribes … er, gifts … from billionaires with business before the Court, it’s just a “paperwork error,” but we know better, don’t we?

If there’s a difference between Trump and other politicians, it’s that Trump just smirks his way through the “scandals” instead of denying what he’s up to with anything resembling seeming sincerity.

Are you trying to show contempt for this court?” a judge asked Mae West in her 1927 obscenity trial.

“On the contrary, your honor,” she replied. “I was doin’ my best to conceal it.”

Trump is a modern Mae West minus the entertainment value. We know when he’s lying. He knows we know when he’s lying. His superpower is just not caring.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

From early April to mid-May, US trade policy went from the bizarre “Liberation Day” tariff schedule — “reciprocal” tariffs that weren’t reciprocal and wouldn’t have made sense if they had been — to US president Donald Trump’s announcements of “major” trade agreements with the Chinese and British regimes.

“An incredible day for America as we deliver our first Fair, Open and Reciprocal Trade Deal,” Trump boasted of the UK agreement. “Something our past Presidents never cared about.” The White House called the China deal “a win for the United States, demonstrating President Trump’s unparalleled expertise in securing deals that benefit the American people.”

Really, the Chinese “deal” seems to consist merely of both sides temporarily freezing US “Liberation Day” tariff hikes and Chinese “retaliatory” measures, while the UK agreement doesn’t even do that, keeping the 10% “Liberation Day” tariff as a “floor” while reducing some other trade barriers in both directions.

The obvious question is whether Trump blinked after his tariff madness produced predictably damaging economic results for Americans and those Americans noticed, or whether this is another one of his head fakes and we can expect him to reverse himself yet again in the coming months, whining the whole time that everyone’s either just unfair, or doesn’t understand his deal-making genius, or both.

If past performance is indicative of future results, the latter seems more likely … and that continuing uncertainty, even more than the obvious and irrefutable stupidity of protective tariffs, is the problem.

To understand why, let’s get hypothetical.

You want to start a business — a grocery store, say — in a town. That involves building, buying, or leasing a building, equipping it with shelves, freezers, cash registers, etc., hiring staff, and shipping inventory.

Now imagine that the government of the town has some strange policies.

Zoning changes at random and retroactively. One month your store is in an area zoned “commercial” and you’re good. The next month it changes to “single-family residential” and you have to move.

The town’s sales taxes are also determined randomly — every week an official draws a number out of a hat. One week it’s 5% and most customers don’t complain too much. The next week it’s 50% and those customers drive to the next town to shop. Or maybe this week it’s 5% if the can of beans you’re selling comes from California, but 50% if it comes from Pennsylvania, and next week it’s 2% if the beans come from North Dakota but 27% if the beans come from Michigan.

You might still want to open a grocery store … but do you want to open a grocery store in that town, or just pick a town with stable, reliable policies that aren’t too different from the towns around it?

You know the answer, and so do those abroad thinking about whether it’s worth doing business in the US, or with US customers. Until Trump settles on a trade policy — hopefully a better one, but at least a stable one — Americans will continue to get the short end of the economic stick.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY