“Everyone Has Dirty Hands When the Government Wants You”
James Comey walked into an Alexandria courthouse today to be arraigned on charges that barely matter. Two felony counts about whether he authorized a leak to the media about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. The specifics are almost irrelevant. What matters is that a president publicly demanded his prosecution, fired the prosecutor who refused, and installed a White House lawyer with no prosecutorial experience to get it done.
The trial date is January 5, 2026—one day before the anniversary of the Capitol attack. Whether coincidence or calculation, the symbolism lands.
But the real story unfolded this afternoon when Dean Blundell assembled an extraordinary panel: former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, Michael Cohen, and Lev Parnas. Two men who’ve been through the machinery Comey now faces. Two men who understand what happens when the Department of Justice decides you’re the target.
“Everyone has dirty hands,” Cohen said, laying out the calculus with brutal clarity. “There is nobody walking this earth that is clean. If somebody did a proctological examination on you, they would find something.”
This isn’t cynicism. It’s experience. Cohen went to prison for campaign finance violations stemming from paying Stormy Daniels. Parnas was indicted on charges initially framed as espionage before settling into wire fraud. Both men describe a system where the initial charges matter less than the process that follows. The indictment is just the opening move.
Dave Aronberg, who spent over a decade as state attorney and has worked both sides of the courtroom, confirmed what Cohen and Parnas already knew: “We have broken the seal because never before have we had such a blatantly political prosecution. You’ve never seen a Democratic president, especially not Joe Biden, message his attorney general and demand that a certain person be prosecuted, an enemy of his, and then fire the US attorney who resists.”
Aronberg contrasted this with Merrick Garland’s approach—a man who refused to prosecute Matt Gaetz, who did prosecute Hunter Biden, who appointed Jack Smith to avoid any appearance of politics. Night and day.
Comey invoked his right to a speedy trial. Smart move. It limits the time prosecutors have to dig. But Parnas and Cohen aren’t convinced it will help. “This is a holding charge,” Parnas explained. The real danger isn’t the current allegations—it’s what comes next.
Parnas understands the threat at a level most Americans can’t. “We’re dealing right now with a very, very corrupt, weaponized DOJ that is working for one man and one man only,” he said. “In a normal world, in a normal DOJ, in a normal situation, a lot of these things are hard. But this isn’t normal.”
The strategy isn’t about convicting Comey on these specific charges. The strategy is using the charges as permission to investigate everything. Cohen described it plainly: “You just highlight anything you think could potentially cause James Comey harm. First you indict, then you find a crime, then you prosecute him on it.”
Wire fraud. Tax evasion. Mortgage fraud. The trifecta of charges that can be hung on almost anyone if prosecutors look hard enough. Cohen described filling out a credit card application where you round up your salary by five thousand dollars. That’s bank fraud. Three to five years. Have a nice day.
Parnas spent time in solitary confinement before he even understood what was happening. Trump’s lawyers represented him initially—a clear conflict designed to keep him quiet. He received a postcard from Rudy Giuliani while in prison, telling him to stay silent. Later, Giuliani butt-dialed Parnas’s attorney while discussing getting rid of burner phones. The incompetence would be funny if the consequences weren’t devastating.
The irony cuts deep. Comey spent his career running the system now aimed at him. Parnas put it bluntly: “With Comey, it’s different because Comey knows how the system works. He used to run the system. He used to be the guy that did this to people like me and Michael Cohen.”
Comey knows prosecutors don’t want to look bad after securing an indictment. He knows the DOJ will throw its full weight behind winning. He knows what Cohen called “the five felonies a day” principle—that most Americans unknowingly break laws constantly, and all it takes is someone motivated to find them.
Aronberg summarized the trap with an old legal maxim: “You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.” The process itself is the punishment. The legal fees, the stress, the years of uncertainty. Even if Comey wins, he’s already lost.
But there’s a larger pattern at work. Trump is systematically rewriting history. He’s prosecuting Comey over Hillary Clinton’s emails—not Trump-Russia—because the goal isn’t justice. The goal is erasing the legitimacy of investigations into his own conduct. January 6 wasn’t an insurrection if you can prosecute the people who said it was. Russia interference wasn’t real if you can destroy the investigators who proved it.
The panel understood the stakes beyond Comey. This prosecution sends a message to every potential critic, every whistleblower, every career official considering resistance. As Parnas warned: “The scary part is not what we’re seeing. It’s what we’re not seeing.”
Cohen despises Comey. He spent years watching his reputation destroyed by the Steele dossier while the FBI refused to correct the record. “11 allegations raised against me, none of which are true,” he said. “But God forbid the media would have gotten it right. Comey refused to come out and say, ‘We know for a fact that Cohen was not in Prague.’”
So when asked if there’s part of him enjoying Comey’s predicament, Cohen didn’t hesitate. “Payback’s a bitch, motherfucker. You are part of the system that’s flawed. Unfortunately, being that you are a big part of that flawed system, unfortunately, payback’s a bitch.”
The United States crossed a line today. The distance between democracy and authoritarianism isn’t measured in dramatic moments. It’s measured in routine court proceedings where former FBI directors face trumped-up charges at a president’s command.
James Comey will likely beat these specific charges. But that was never the point.Thank you
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