Republicans fear that Donald Trump’s obsession with prosecuting his political enemies will turn voters off ahead of the midterms.
Trump continued his revenge tour against old adversaries after his Department of Justice once again indicted former FBI Director James Comey over wild claims that his posting of seashells spelling out “86 47” amounted to a threat against the president’s life.
This is the second time that Trump’s DOJ has brought charges against Comey, with investigations also launched into other Trump nemeses, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former White House national security adviser John Bolton, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
There is growing concern among Republicans that Trump is becoming too preoccupied with targeting his foes instead of focusing on the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Iran ahead of November’s crucial nationwide elections.
“No Republican wants to run on ‘I stand with Donald Trump’s retribution tour’ while gas prices are so high,” Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona, told The Washington Post. “There is no doubt that the vast majority of non-MAGA voters want Trump to focus on anything but his personal animus toward a wide variety of people.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former defense lawyer, announced Tuesday that Comey is facing two charges over claims he “knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm” on Trump.
The allegations stem from a May 2025 photo Comey shared on Instagram of seashells arranged on a beach to read “86 47.” In the hospitality industry, “86” is a slang term meaning to remove an item or eject a customer.
Federal prosecutors suggest that Comey’s post was actually a threat to kill Trump, with the “47” referring to him as the 47th U.S. president. A former Department of Justice official told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the indictment “might be the worst case DOJ has filed in my lifetime.”
Republican North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis also questioned the strength of the case and whether it is a good use of the administration’s time.
“If it really is a picture that says ‘86 47’—I’ve used ‘86’ a lot of times,” Tillis told the Post. “I’ve never said it with the intent of killing somebody.”
This marks the second time the DOJ has indicted Comey since Trump returned to office. Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017, was previously charged with making a false statement to Congress regarding leaks tied to the Russiagate investigation.
That case was dismissed last November after a judge ruled that Trump’s hand-picked prosecutor, former beauty queen Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed.
Republican political consultant Whit Ayres said Trump “spending time relitigating old disputes is exactly the opposite of what most Americans want” from the president.
“They’re worried about inflation and the economy, and many of them are worried about how the war in Iran will end,” Ayres told the Post.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the idea that Trump and his administration cannot handle multiple priorities at once was “so laughably false, only the Washington Post would come up with it.”
“The insinuation that a grand jury returning an indictment is mutually exclusive with the administration’s strong efforts on the economy is objectively false,” Jackson told the Daily Beast.
