Trump's Comey, Kimmel campaigns are a free speech call to action

The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for an Instagram post apparently calling for President Donald Trump's ouster from office in a code laid out in seashells was decried as running afoul of the First Amendment even by some Trump supporters and Comey critics. Around the same time, the White House embarked on a campaign to get comedian and late night host Jimmy Kimmel fired by ABC over a joke about first lady Melania Trump — and the Federal Communications Commission appeared to back this effort with a threat to ABC-owned station licenses.

Trump supporters have hailed him as a defender of free speech against the "politically correct" or "woke" left wing speech police. Now, it looks like the Trump administration has declared war on speech it finds offensive.

The charges against Comey are based on an image interpreted by the Trump Justice Department as incitement to murder: the numbers "86 47." (Comey made the post a year ago and deleted it after a backlash.) The term "eighty-six" comes from restaurant industry slang and refers to throwing out a customer or taking an item off the menu; while Trump and his officials have asserted that it's also a common criminal underworld term for murder, there is no evidence to support this claim.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has admitted that "86 47” posts, and even merchandise products, are very common and won't be prosecuted. It seems likely that the real reason for the Comey indictment is a vendetta over the 2016-17 "Russiagate" investigation. Even so, these selective charges are based on undesirable speech.

The campaign against Kimmel is no less troubling. Two days before the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Kimmel put on a skit that satirized the event — and the first couple's planned attendance — and joked about Melania Trump having a "glow like an expectant widow." Tasteless? Maybe; but initially, no one was offended by this well-known trope of the gold-digging younger wife waiting for her aged husband to die. But after the assassination attempt at the dinner, many Trump supporters claimed Kimmel was mocking Trump's possible murder — or even, as Trump wrote in a social media post, issuing a "call to violence."

Both the president and the first lady urged ABC to fire Kimmel. Coming from the president in particular, this is unmistakable pressure for censorship backed up by the power of the state — especially since two Trump posts demanding Kimmel's firing were amplified by the official White House account on X.

Then, the FCC announced an early review of ABC station licenses which aren't up for renewal until 2028 or even 2031. The pretext is possible racial discrimination to achieve diversity. But the timing is more than suspicious — especially since FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has publicly cheered Trump's battles against the "fake news media."

These assaults on the First Amendment should be a call to action for all defenders of free speech, including critics of progressive "cancel culture." Left wing attempts to curb and punish undesirable speech through social pressures were bad enough; but the Trumpian right, even more dangerously, seeks to cancel dissenters using government power. Some opponents of the censorious left, such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, have strongly condemned the administration's moves. Others, such as Bari Weiss's website The Free Press, have been quiet or offered only tepid criticism. This is a time for free speech advocates on the right to decide if they are principled or partisan.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.