Even Fox News Analyst Thinks Trump’s Comey Indictment Is “Absurd”

Nobody is buying the Department of Justice’s latest attempt to get revenge on former FBI Director James Comey—not even the president’s conservative allies in the media.

In a scathing response published Tuesday in the National Review, Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy tore apart the Trump administration’s second “bogus” indictment of Comey, calling it“even more absurd than the previous indictment.”

Comey’s offense? He posted a picture of seashells arranged on the beach in North Carolina that read “8647.” He claimed he’d come across the shells, already arranged, while taking a walk and assumed it was a political message. Some accused the former FBI director of calling to “86,” or kill, the forty-seventh president, Donald Trump.

McCarthy wrote: “After uproar generated by the administration, Comey took down the post and publicly asserted that he opposes violence and meant no such suggestion. He also voluntarily submitted to interviews with the Secret Service—which proceeded to drop what should never have been a criminal investigation. There was not a threat of violence against the president, much less an unambiguous call for his assassination. Nor would it be remotely possible, on the known evidence, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey intended violence.

“This farce, then, is nothing more than a continuation of Trump’s lawfare campaign against a political enemy. It is inconceivable that Comey could be convicted of a crime in these circumstances, but the president’s minions are putting him through the anxiety, expense, and stigma of the judicial process,” McCarthy added.

It seems that “farce” may be as good a label as any for the DOJ’s latest attempt to nab Comey for, well, anything at all, it seems. The charges against Comey that were approved by a grand jury include making a threat against the president and transmitting it in interstate commerce, according to court documents.

A former Department of Justice official told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Comey’s latest indictment “might be the worst case DOJ has filed in my lifetime.”

On Tuesday, King Charles III delivered a speech to Congress full of the stuff President Trump opposes. 

During his remarks, Charles mentioned that the Magna Carta—the foundational legal document signed by England’s King John in 1215—was cited multiple times in U.S. law, noting that it brought about limits on executive power.  

“The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances,” Charles said, getting an immediate standing ovation from Democrats in the audience, but delayed applause from Republicans. 

Charles could very well have been referring to Trump, who has tried to push the limits of his authority as president and ignored Congress with the aid of conservative justices on the high court. 

When Charles mentioned Christianity, he also connected it to interfaith solidarity, a concept that is alien to the president. 

“The Christian faith is a firm anchor and daily inspiration that guides us not only personally—” the king started before being interrupted by applause. “Guides us not only personally, but together as members of our community,” he continued. “Having devoted a large part of my life to interfaith relationships and greater understanding, it is that faith in the triumph of light over darkness, which I have found confirmed countless times.

“Through it, I am inspired by the profound respect that develops as people of different faiths grow in their understanding of each other,” Charles said. 

Charles’s largest applause lines came from his mention of American and British participation in NATO, which Trump has threatened to leave over what he perceives as the organization’s lack of help with the Iran war, and how it is still needed for the defense of Ukraine. 

“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder, through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security,” Charles said. “Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people.”

One wonders what Trump will think if he ends up seeing any part of the speech. At the White House Monday, Trump was happy to meet with the king. Will he change his mind and let loose a barrage of insults on Truth Social? 

King Charles III—whose brother Andrew was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein and has been accused of sexual misconduct—made no mention of the sexual predator or his victims during his joint address to Congress, even after saying that he would.

Earlier on Tuesday, HuffPost reported that Charles refused an invitation from Representative Ro Khanna to meet face to face with survivors of Epstein’s abuse, promising to instead acknowledge them during his speech. The California Democrat stated that the king “owed that to the survivors” given the mountain of controversy surrounding his brother’s actions.

“I thought it would have been an incredible moment and statement to show that it doesn’t matter how much wealth you have, how much power you have, no human being is dispensable, and that the survivors deserve justice,” Khanna said, regarding the invitation to meet with Epstein’s survivors. “He unfortunately declined that request.” A roundtable with survivors was held in Charles’s absence.

“It’s unfortunate,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told HuffPost, stating that Charles missed a real chance “to give back to just, basically, humanity, and show all the people in the U.K. and the world that he actually cares.”

Even with that rejection, Khanna still held out hope.

“I’m told he’s going to be making some statement about the survivors this afternoon in his address,” he said initially. “I hope his flunkies don’t take out the acknowledgment from his text.… I fully expect the king to be acknowledging the Epstein survivors when he speaks to our nation.”

That didn’t happen, either. Instead, Charles merely mentioned the need to “support victims of some of the ills that, so tragically, exist in both our societies today.” King Charles made time to discuss everything from the sacred U.S.-U.K. partnership to NATO, to Christianity, but he didn’t acknowledge the heinous crimes of his brother’s friend and the women who still live with the trauma of his abuse.

Epstein’s survivors have yet to comment on the king’s omission.

The White House has literally elevated Donald Trump to “king” status.

While King Charles of Britain delivered an address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, the Trump administration was cooking up a P.R. photo to exploit the royal leader’s fleeting visit.

“TWO KINGS,” the official White House account posted on X, paired with a crown emoji as well as a photo of the king and Trump outside the Oval Office.

Charles was visiting Washington ahead of America’s 250th anniversary to encourage diplomatic relations. In a concise speech, the king spoke beyond America’s current political divide, asserting to Americans and their representatives that a U.S.-U.K. partnership is “more important” than ever and that the “challenges we face are too great for any one nation to bear alone.”

Directly addressing House Speaker Mike Johnson, Vice President JD Vance, and the present members of Congress, Charles said that “America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since Independence.”

“The actions of this great nation matter even more,” he continued. “President Lincoln understood this so well, with his reflection in the magisterial Gettysburg Address that the world may little note what we say, but will never forget what we do.”

But the MAGA movement—and its leader—has rarely taken care of its verbiage, let alone fretted about the consequences of its actions. The captioned image of Trump and the king is just one example that is likely to be portrayed as a joke among Trump’s political acolytes—but his allies have not shied away from opportunities to humor the alleged bit and its rhetorical attack on American democracy.

Trump referred to himself as a king in February—an odd inclusion amid a string of rants attacking New York City’s locally popular midtown congestion-pricing policy. Moments later, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted an AI-generated picture of Trump wearing a jeweled crown and fur-trimmed cape. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also elevated the disturbing quip at the time, resharing Trump’s kingly comments after rubber-stamping them with a “100” emoji.

Earlier this month, Trump circulated another controversial AI-generated image on his Truth Social that painted him as Jesus Christ, cloaked in red and white robes and surrounded by light. The blasphemy seemed to be the first major instance in which the president spurred searing bipartisan backlash for his actions, prompting him to delete the post and do an about-face on the meaning of the image. He later claimed to reporters that he believed it depicted him as a doctor.

The Trump administration’s various projects to reshape the government—even the symbolic ones—are costing U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

In its latest legislative proposal, the Department of Defense has formally asked Congress to codify its rebrand as the “Department of War,” assuring it that the name change would have “no significant impact” on future spending.

Yet the military agency also acknowledged that it has already spent some $50 million in implementing the new title. The vast majority of that price tag, roughly $44.6 million, was tied to the agency’s enterprise systems, infrastructure, and administrative support, reported Inside Defense Tuesday.

That money was potentially spent in vain. While Donald Trump declared the identity switch via an executive order in September, the department’s name remains unchanged by law. Ultimately, Congress alone is responsible for the redesignation.

However, the $50 million already spent could turn out to be just a fraction of the overall cost to cast a more aggressive identity on America’s military agency. In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that renaming the DOD could cost as much as $125 million or more if the title was used across the entire agency.

“Costs would be at least a few million dollars if DoD phased in a minimal implementation, but they could be as large as $125 million if the name change was implemented broadly and rapidly throughout the department,” the CBO wrote at the time. “A statutory renaming could cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how Congress and DoD chose to implement the change.”

Despite Trump’s repeat campaign pledges to slash government spending, practically all of the MAGA leader’s sweeping government reforms have come with hidden fees. This week, Republicans began pushing their congressional colleagues to sign a $400 million check to construct Trump’s White House ballroom.

Led by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the cohort has claimed that the space needs to be built expeditiously as a matter of national security. Citing the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday, Republicans have argued that the president is not safe without the proposed 90,000-square-foot dance hall and the attached underground military complex.

None of them have yet explained how the Secret Service—which also manned security at the Saturday night dinner—would have hypothetically fared differently at the White House location.

The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis—and then called her a “fucking bitch” moments before she died in her car—has been transferred to a different state to continue his work with the agency, as the FBI continues to supress an investigation into him.

PunchUp, The Daily Beast’s new Substack, reported that Jonathan Ross, who was only placed on three days of administrative leave for shooting Good in the arm, head, and chest, is back in both an administrative and investigative capacity, facing virtually no consequences for killing an innocent woman in broad daylight.

Department of Homeland Security officials told the outlet that ICE’s internal affairs can’t conduct its own investigation until the FBI probe ends—meaning Ross could avoid accountability for a long time to come.

The FBI’s investigation into Ross has been delayed and marked by a series of controversial moves. Six senior Justice Department officials quit in January over the department’s handling of the case, as did an FBI supervisor in the Minneapolis field office who was pushed to discontinue her civil rights probe into Ross. And while the DOJ claims that the investigation is ongoing, the only thing that’s come out of it is Ross returning to work.

Donald Trump’s picture could soon be on every new U.S. passport.

The State Department is finalizing a plan to put the president’s face in the travel document, The Bulwark reports, citing two sources with knowledge of the passport redesign, one of whom provided pictures. The new passports will include Trump’s second inaugural portrait superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, along with his signature in gold.

According to The Bulwark, there will be a “limited run” of 25,000 of these Trump passports, which are still waiting to be approved. While the current U.S. passport includes an image of Mount Rushmore, which has the heads of four presidents, this would be the first stand-alone image of a U.S. president, living or dead, in a passport. No foreign passports have included pictures of heads of state, and U.S. passports have previously carried the signature of the secretary of state, but not the president.

Trump has made a habit of putting his name on things in his second term as president, from the U.S. Institute of Peace to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s put banners with his face on federal buildings and created a website for prescriptions called TrumpRx.gov.

This new passport is supposedly part of the 250th anniversary of American independence, and comes as the Treasury Department hopes to produce two coins with Trump’s face on them: a $1 coin with Trump’s face on it for general circulation and a commemorative coin that would be “as large as possible.” The president seems intent on having Americans feel shame every time they open their wallet or travel overseas.

In the latest escalation of President Donald Trump’s beef with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission has begun an early review of Disney’s broadcast licenses, The New York Times reported Tuesday.  

Trump’s crusade against Kimmel reignited after the television host joked last week that Melania would “glow like an expectant widow” at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Days later, a suspected gunman attempted to attack the event, launching the latest round of conservative pearl-clutching and suggestions that the gunman had gotten the idea to assassinate the president from late-night TV. 

The shooter’s supposed manifesto specifically referred to Trump’s lack of respect for Christianity, his decision to cut off funding for Ukraine, and the country being led by “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor” as primary grievances for his actions. Not Kimmel’s joke. 

But in the days after the shooting, Melania Trump, the president, and at least two members of White House staff have attacked Kimmel.

Earlier this month, FCC Chair Brandon Carr publicly suggested that Disney’s broadcast license could be in jeopardy, after launching an investigation into Disney over its alleged efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. “If the evidence does in fact play out and shows that they were engaged in race- and gender-based discrimination, that’s a very serious issue at the FCC, that could fundamentally go to their character qualifications to even hold a license,” Carr told Fox News.

Disney and ABC have previously bucked the president’s wishes by reinstalling Kimmel after he was temporarily suspended for criticizing the conservative base’s response to Charlie Kirk’s death. Carr threatened the company’s licenses then, too. Carr warned on a far-right podcast that if Disney and ABC don’t “take action on Kimmel,” they may see suspension of broadcast licenses.

This story has been updated.

The United Kingdom’s new ambassador to the United States told a group of British students visiting Washington that America’s only “special relationship” is with Israel, not the U.K. 

Sir Christian Turner’s remarks were leaked to the Financial Times, which reported the news Tuesday as King Charles III visits the U.S. this week. Turner met with the students shortly after his appointment in February, and during a Q&A with them, was asked about the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship.” He described the phrase as “quite nostalgic,” saying that “it’s quite backwards looking, and it has a lot of baggage about it.”

“I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States—and that is probably Israel,” Turner said at the event prior to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. 

Turner also told the students that it was “extraordinary” that the fallout from the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files had “brought down a senior member of the royal family, a British ambassador to Washington, potentially the prime minister, and yet here in the U.S., it really hasn’t touched anybody.”  

Turner’s comments are surprising, but reflect reality in that Israel receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid every year. The State Department has admitted that the Iran war came at Israel’s urging, and U.S.-U.K. ties have gone up and down through the decades for many reasons, including the Iraq War, Trump’s tariffs, and the Iran war. 

Regarding Epstein, the U.S. government’s release of files related to the convicted sex offender has shaken the British government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, resulting in Turner’s predecessor, Peter Mandelson, being fired and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then Prince Andrew, being stripped of his royal titles.

Turner’s words likely won’t come with any consequences, especially considering that Mandelson was sacked over his close ties to the notorious sex offender. But they do give an insight into what leading foreign officials think of how the U.S. is run under President Trump, and things aren’t good.