JAMES AND THE GIANT OVERREACH

The criminal case against James Comey is both absurdly sloppy and terrifyingly dangerous — and much bigger than the fate of James Comey.

• President Donald Trump could hardly contain his vindictive glee over the news that his longtime foe, former FBI director James Comey, had finally been charged with two felonies. “JUSTICE IN AMERICA,” Trump crowed in a post on Truth Social Thursday evening, lambasting Comey as “one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to.” This morning, he signaled once again that Comey may just be the first in a wave of arrests of people he doesn’t like. “I think there will be others,” Trump told reporters outside the White House. “I mean, they’re corrupt.”

• It’s just like Trump to casually warn of a jackbooted authoritarian assault on his opponents before blithely jetting off to a golf tournament on Long Island, NY. But it’s another reminder of the sickeningly high stakes of this drama. The case against Comey may be slipshod, but it’s still a test of Trump’s ability to turn the Department of Justice into a weapon of vengeance. This story is bigger than Comey. As David Frum put it in The Atlantic: “It’s a glimpse of Trump’s next attempt to seize power.”

• Allowing Trump to turn the DOJ into MAGA’s sword and shield would endanger anyone who wants to stand up to Trump in the future, from political opponents to universities, law firms, comedians, protestors — or those who just want to see power change hands after a peaceful election. As Crooked’s own Dan Pfeiffer put it: “This is an abuse of power on the scale of Watergate — and this is just the beginning.”

• Comey’s criminal case marks “another step in a forward-looking plot to shred the rule of law in order to pervert the next election and protect his corruption from accountability,” Frum wrote. “James Comey’s rights and liberties are not the only ones at risk today. So is your own right to participate in free and fair elections in order to render a verdict on Trump’s invasion of those rights and liberties.”

Yet for all its massive importance, the case brought by Trump’s team is also flimsy, opaque and bizarre.

• Prosecutors traditionally like to flesh out the details of high-profile cases in their early filings, often in what’s known as a “speaking indictment.” In this case, Trump’s hand-picked prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, took the very unusual approach of drafting a document that hides the most important details.

• The slim, two-page indictment charges Comey with obstruction of justice and making false statements — but doesn’t specify clearly what those statements are, giving the public no way to be sure what Comey has been accused of, as Zack Beauchamp points out in VOX.

• The grand jury refused to approve a third count, in what is normally considered an embarrassing defeat for prosecutors (given that grand juries are notoriously pliant, and, as the old joke goes, will “indict a ham sandwich.”) Halligan then proceeded to give the wrong paperwork to the judge. Halligan, of course, has no experience as a prosecutor, and has been in this role for less than a week, after Trump forced out her far-more-experienced predecessor for failing to bring cases like this one.

• Comey struck a defiant stance. “I’m innocent,” he said in a video post on Instagram.

From corrupt Jan. 6 pardons, to attacking judges, to this latest case: Trump isn’t just going after Comey — he’s going after the legal system itself. We rely on that system to protect our elections and to protect our rights. And the authoritarian president knows it.

WHAT ELSE?

Prepare to be shocked: Trump is already attacking the federal judge who will preside over his prosecution of Comey. U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a 2021 Biden appointee, was assigned at random to the case in the Eastern District of Virginia outside Washington, DC. Nachmanoff presided over the 2019 arraignment of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two cronies of Rudy Giuliani caught up in campaign finance accusations. On Friday Trump claimed that Comey was “off to a very good start” because he had been assigned to Nachmanoff, who was appointed, Trump said, by “Crooked Joe Biden.”

Why did Defense War Secretary Pete Hegseth summon hundreds of generals and admirals to Washington D.C. next week? To lecture them on the “warrior ethos,” the Washington Post reported. Oh Lord, grant us all the confidence of this former “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host planning to tell hundreds of generals how to find their inner warrior.

The Trump Administration cancelled the union contract of more than 30,000 workers in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Trump has stripped nearly half a million federal workers of union rights since taking office in January. “Don’t be fooled, this is not about efficiency or accountability — this is about silencing our voice,” said Brandy Moore White, president of the Council of Prison Locals.

An Oklahoma handler who had acquired some of Joe Exotic’s big cats was mauled by and killed by one of his tigers. Ryan Easley was performing at his Growler Pines Tiger Preserve when one of the tigers attacked him, the New York Times reported. Joe Exotic was the subject of the wildly popular “Tiger King” series on Netflix. He’s currently serving a 22 year sentence for animal abuse and a murder-for-hire scheme.

Light at the End of the Email…

The generic version of a groundbreaking injectable HIV prevention drug that sells in the US for $28,000 per year is set for worldwide distribution for around $40 per year to 120 nations in 2027.

Broadcasters Sinclair and Nexstar both relented in their boycotts of Jimmy Kimmel, saying they will return the comedian’s show to dozens of ABC stations. Sinclair said its decision was made “independent of any government interaction or influence” and said it was exercising free speech when it decided to take Kimmel’s show off the air. What Sinclair didn’t say: Nothing they were putting in Kimmel’s place got anything close to the ad revenue “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” generates.

Language changes with the times, and so should your dictionary. “Doomscroll,” “Dad-bod,” “adulting,” “dumbphone,” and “beast mode” are among 5,000 new entries to the latest revised 12th Edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Are you giving this list the “side-eye”? No problem… that’s in there too.

A district-wide ban on cell phones at Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky seems to be working, if library book check-outs are any indication of restored attention spans. “Students Turn Back to Books,” this headline reads. We’re here for it!