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Jabin Botsford

<i>James B. Comey is a former director of the FBI and a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation.</i>

I have heard it said that America needs to tread carefully in the way we handle prosecutorial or legal decisions about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>, lest we provoke violence. We are supposed to worry about the tumult his many indictments might bring from his millions of followers. We should approach the issue of disqualifying Trump under the 14th Amendment with great care, we are warned, as it might bring violent mobs down upon us. And, most recently, we are told there will be bedlam if he doesn’t get complete immunity.

I doubt it. We should always worry about political violence, especially when violent rhetoric and behavior are embraced, even celebrated, by one of our political parties and its leader. The FBI’s domestic terrorism section is paid to worry, and hundreds of people at the bureau and its partner agencies are getting up every morning trying to spot potential threats and defuse them. It’s work they must do.

But I think we have a much bigger problem with <i>threats</i> of violence than we do with actual violence. Trumpist threats seem to be everywhere these days. Public officials at all levels regularly receive them by mail, email, social media or, quaintly, even voice mail. And there are the attempted “swattings,” where callers report nonexistent crimes to trigger a response by law enforcement, and other forms of harassment. Of course, these must be taken seriously because there’s always the chance that some disturbed person will act on a threat. But I know from professional — and, unfortunately, personal — experience that people mostly tend to threaten because they want to live rent-free in your head, impacting the way you live even if they never come near you. It’s a difficult thing to ask of frightened poll workers, school board members or judges, but they must find a way to take prudent precautions while not letting the threateners achieve their goal of warping life. Don’t let them own you.

As a country, we need to strike the same balance by refusing to let our imaginations give threats power over our national life. We must not let the idea of Trumpian violence become some kind of boogeyman, frightening us away from our commitment to the rule of law.

There is a natural human tendency to exaggerate a threat in the wake of a horrible incident, especially one that follows a security lapse. The attacks of 9/11 took an unbearable human toll, but they were the product of our own failures of preparation and imagination, compounded by the astonishing luck of a group of killers who caused carnage they couldn’t have imagined. Yet, in the aftermath, we envisioned al-Qaeda as an existential threat to the United States, an assessment that led us into all kinds of error at home and abroad.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a>, 2021, was a terrible day, but it was at bottom a security failure. For reasons I still don’t understand, our government didn’t properly assess and prepare for a threat that was moving at the speed of a daytime stroll, broadcast in advance. A mob managed to take a building that sits atop an easily defended hill because it was not properly secured, despite the heroic actions of an understaffed police force. Yes, there were sophisticated actors in the crowd that day, especially the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who operated with seditious intent in organized teams. But, in the overwhelming main, the offenders of Jan. 6 were morons who bought Trump’s lies. They must be held accountable — every last one of them — but they shouldn’t be the monster under our national bed.

That accountability should comfort us. The Justice Department’s prosecution of more than 1,200 Jan. 6 defendants has sent a shock wave of deterrence at those who might otherwise be tempted to take a day off work to literally fight for Trump. They now know it will cost them dearly and most of them have no interest in paying that price, despite his generous offers of pardon. These aren’t jihadis looking to blow themselves up for some reward in paradise. These are mostly people with day jobs who feel a sense of grievance stoked by the amoral demagogue now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/presidential-candidates-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">running for president</a> again. They might vote for him — those who are not yet felons — but they’re not looking to die for him, or even go to jail for him. They weren’t there when he was arraigned in New York or Georgia or Florida or D.C. They aren’t coming. Sometimes, even idiots aren’t fools.

The rule of law must be vindicated regardless of the threat, which is why public servants at all levels around the country are soldiering on despite the torrent of individual abuse. Terrorists, gangsters and drug lords have long been held accountable in this country even when their organizations posed a serious risk of violence aimed at those who operate our legal system. Fortunately, that’s not what we face today. Trump and his legions are not coming for us. The rule of law is finally coming for him.

James Comey

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James Comey: The rule of law is finally coming for Donald Trump

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