Comey Indictment May Be Upended by Precedent

“The criminal indictment of former FBI director James B. Comey for allegedly threatening President Donald Trump appears to fall short of a standard articulated by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in a 2015 opinion, when the Supreme Court pointedly distinguished a genuine threat from mere speech,” the Washington Post reports.

“Roberts, along with a majority of the court, ruled in the 2015 case Elonis v. United States that prosecutors seeking to convict someone of sending a dangerous message must prove the person intended to make a violent threat — or at least knew there was a substantial chance it would be viewed as threatening.”