Walking along a North Carolina beach a year ago, former FBI Director James Comey saw some shells arranged to make out the numbers 86 and 47. He snapped a picture, like you do, and posted it on Instagram with the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice immediately launched criminal investigations to determine whether Comey could be charged with threatening the life of the president. He was even interviewed by the Secret Service.

Ultimately, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi presumably determined that, despite the fevered outrage in Trump world, there was no way to turn these facts into an actual criminal charge.

And that’s really saying something, since Bondi’s Justice Department was responsible for an unprecedented number of failed prosecutions, including failing to get an indictment for felony assault, and then failing to get a conviction for misdemeanor assault, on someone who threw a salami sandwich at a National Guardsman wearing a ballistic vest.

The James Comey seashell case that was too ridiculous for Pam Bondi

Why was this case too ridiculous even for Bondi? Let’s start with the government’s theory as to why this was a threat at all.........

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