☕️ WITLESS NITWITS ☙ Friday, May 16, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Hated ex-FBI chief steps on a rake with veiled Trump threat; Pfizer election-rigging probe heats up; RFK Jr. rewrites vax policy; WSJ hints at bigger Trump safety play.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Another week, in the can. Your roundup today includes: hated former FBI director steps on a rake by making veilied death threats against President Trump; evidence mounts in Pfizer election-interference case as a witness appears, and investigators begin to dig in; Kennedy’s HHS makes major jab announcements and corporate media scrambles to scrape up more hysteria; odd WSJ set piece reveals much bigger moves afoot from the Trump Administration and infrastructure safety.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Fool around and find out! Yesterday, NBC ran a very encouraging story headlined, “Former FBI Director James Comey under investigation for post seen as a potential threat to Trump's life.” It’s almost like he wants to be locked up.

This week, witless moron and former FBI Director James Comey decided it would be a good idea to post a thinly-veiled assassination threat against President Trump on his Instagram page. Predictably, even though the story was about the government’s response to Comey’s post, NBC didn’t include the actual post in its article. So if you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

For Portland readers, “86” is a slang term for “get rid of,” and gang members often use it as shorthand for un-aliving someone. “47” refers to Donald Trump, the 47th President. Thus, Comey’s “cool” four-digit shell formation translated to, “kill Trump.” It wasn’t even original. The nut jobs on BlueSky have been using the murderous code since Trump’s first term (at that time, “86 / 45”).

Comey quickly pulled his post after the blowback started. It’s not clear whether that was before or after Secret Service agents paid him a visit. The passive-aggressive former FBI Director childishly claimed he never even knew that criminals used the digits as shorthand for murder. In other words, Comey is using the “I’m a moron” defense, which often, but for obvious reasons, misfires badly.

National Security Director Tulsi Gabbard isn’t buying it:

DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) on X

“We’re taking this very seriously,” Gabbard told Fox News anchor Jesse Waters. “There was a guy in Georgia last month issuing threats against my life, and now he’s in jail,” she added. “Do you believe Mr. Comey should be in jail?” Jesse asked.

“James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this,” she answered. That’s a fair reading of how we all feel.

If TDS sufferer James Comey’s goal was to get the Trump Administration’s attention, it worked. Nearly every security-adjacent official chimed in, including HHS Director Kristi Noem, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Secret Service Director Sean Curran.

Not coincidentally, Comey is also releasing a fiction novel this month, and odds are good his post was a lame attempt to make himself a cause celebré for deranged Democrats who, he hopes, will buy his book in lunatic solidarity.

The trouble with pranks like this is you never know where they will end. I won’t try to predict the legal outcome. Comey knows the law, and he’s a slimy snake, so presumably he covered his tracks well. But let’s begin with 18 U.S.C. §  871, which is broad enough to apply: “Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance… any communication containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President… shall be fined under this title or imprisoned.”

So, to convict Comey, the government must prove three things: a communication, a threat, and that he knew it was a threat. His Instagram post was clearly a communication. The message, “86/47,” will likely be found to be a threat. The challenge will be for the government to prove Comey knew it was a threat. That’ll be where the main fight unfolds.

In Watts v. United States (1969), the Supreme Court cleared an anti-war protester who said during a rally that, if he were drafted, “the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ.” SCOTUS found that remark to be non-criminal “political hyperbole.”

Similarly, in United States v. Elonis (2015), the Supreme Court considered a teenage rap artist who’d been convicted of threatening various people, including an FBI agent, even though in many of his threatening posts he explicitly wrote, “this is not a threat.” The Court reversed his conviction, holding that prosecutors must prove that a defendant knows that other people would reasonably perceive their statement to be a threat.

Without more evidence about Comey’s knowledge, it remains a tossup. But the better news is that, since the government must prove Comey subjectively knew, the Secret Service now has ample grounds for searching his communications, homes, cars, and anywhere else there might be evidence the former FBI Director understood what the digits meant.

He’s about to enjoy a government-mandated proctological expedition. Bend over, Jim.

When they search Comey, if they find evidence of other crimes, well, that could be a whole different matter. For instance, even if the warrant is for digital messages about threatening the President, but they find classified documents or kiddie porn on Comey’s laptop, then it’s game on.

Comey, who unleashed many of his own criminal investigations on innocent citizens, on grounds much flimsier than his shelly little masterpiece, now has his own chance to find out exactly what it feels like.

I couldn’t say whether it’s likely he’ll be convicted. But one thing seems certain: Comey is about to endure the process, which will probably include his arrest, mugshot, and having to spend a not-insignificant portion of his book royalties on defense counsel. He just gave his enemies fully justified grounds to fire off the whole nine yards of investigative ammo.

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Speaking of people about to endure an investigative ordeal, yesterday Reuters ran a terrific story headlined, “US House panel seeks information from Pfizer over alleged COVID vaccine delay.” Surprisingly, it’s not about medical malpractice. The investigation is about the worst crime in the entire deplorable catalogue of human misconduct: election interference.

Philip R. Dormitzer is a prominent virologist and mRNA vaccine researcher who was Pfizer’s Global Head of Vaccine Research & Development during the pandemic. In 2021, he left Pfizer for another plum job at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). He now finds himself at the molten center of a congressional firestorm.

Of course, Reuters buried the lede. The article’s second-to-last sentence was this bombshell: “The Wall Street Journal said that GSK had reported Dormitzer's alleged comments to federal prosecutors in New York.” Federal prosecutors means there’s an open federal investigation and Mr. Dormitzer is involved in it somehow. He could be the defendant, or they could be after bigger fish.

The latest developments could have been the plot of a legal thriller on Hulu. The only reasonable way to interpret the facts is that Dormitzer’s new boss, GSK, is throwing him under the corporate bus. And now the backup lights are on. Beep, beep, beep.

First, Dormitzer knew this was coming. The article told readers that GSK volunteered to prosecutors that, after Trump was elected in November, Mr. Dormitzer became “visibly upset” and requested immediate reassignment to Canada because of, get this, fear of being investigated. It is the legal equivalent of terrified cockroaches scurrying away when the kitchen lights switch on.

According to GSK, its HR person asked Dormitzer why he was so afraid of being investigated for his role in developing the covid shots. He said, and I am not making this up, “Let’s just say it wasn’t a coincidence, the timing of the vaccine.”

In our legal system, evidence of knowledge of a future investigation is also circumstantial evidence of consciousness of guilt. If the former Pfizer VP destroyed evidence, like by deleting his emails or trying to tell other witnesses what to say, it gets even more compelling.

But that wasn’t close to all. GSK also told the House Investigative Committee that Dormitzer repeatedly bragged to his GSK co-workers that “the three most senior” Pfizer executives decided to “slow-walk” trial results— so that the vaccine would not become available until after the 2020 elections, specifically to hurt Trump’s electoral chances.

Consistent with that testimony, Pfizer first shared its trial results on November 9, 2020 — four days after Biden won the presidential election.

💉 The story made news this week because yesterday, House Committee Chair Jim Jordan fired off a two-page letter to Pfizer President Albert Bourla that could become historic in scope and scale. The allegations aren’t new, but they are now supported by witness statements from a credible insider (Dormitzer) and corroborating third-party testimony (GSK). This new evidence justifies deeper digging, and deeper digging is just what the House intends to do.

But maybe most encouraging was the story’s brief mention of the ongoing federal investigation out of the Southern District of New York. It could be much bigger than Dormitzer; it could be a criminal investigation of Pfizer itself. At this point, we don’t (and can’t) know; but the fact the investigation exists at all is huge.

Pfizer is a corporate juggernaut with vast and deep pockets, lobbyists, and pocketed politicians from both parties. It’s as politically well-connected as anyone, and in a case that is inherently political, is as well-protected as a Russian nuclear storage facility. Which explains why Trump’s DOJ must proceed extremely carefully, in order to build a case that could stick.

Still, despite Pfizer’s political armor and its history of surviving many other criminal prosecutions, this feels different. I couldn’t find any historical examples (at least, not from the U.S.) of big companies illegally influencing presidential elections. There’s probably a reason nobody has tried it before.

Pfizer’s woes are only just beginning. This election interference angle could be easier to prove and ultimately more damaging than Pfizer’s crimes related to the awful shots, since Pfizer lacks legal immunity for political misconduct. For anyone who wondered if there would ever be accountability, the news of multiple open investigations should be very encouraging.

But that wasn’t all yesterday’s jab news.

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That didn’t take long! Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran another exclusive story, this one headlined “Exclusive | HHS to Stop Recommending Routine Covid Shots for Children, Pregnant Women.”

According to “people familiar with the matter,” the Trump administration has joined Florida, and plans to drop CDC recommendations that pregnant women, teenagers, and children get jabs unless they are in an “at-risk” group. Not only that, but the story reported that the changes to the CDC’s covid jab guidance are soon expected— along with “a new framework for approving vaccines.”

Quibblers will surely argue that covid shots should be discouraged for everybody, not just kids and pregnant women, and they will complain that it should have happened sooner, and so on. But the fact is, as one of his first and biggest official announcements, new HHS Secretary Kennedy is tackling vaccines.

Think of it. “A new framework for approving vaccines” sounds like it could be extremely unpleasant for the whole jab industry. Expect panic and widespread hysteria.

Yesterday, new FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said, “Separate from my role as a regulator at the FDA, I am not encouraging or insisting young, healthy children to get a Covid shot unless there is new evidence that emerges that suggests there is a clear benefit.”

In other words, there is not any current evidence of any clear benefit of the shots.

Alert C&C readers are unsurprised; we’ve been impatiently waiting for covid jab walkbacks since Trump took office in January. But let us not throw out the unvaccinated baby with the pediatrician’s bathwater. Any scalebacks or additional testing burdens on vaccines gores Big Pharma’s most profitable sacred cows and asses, I mean assets.

During the pandemic, “follow the CDC” became an authoritarian slogan of moral certainty. Now that the CDC (under RFK Jr.’s HHS) is about to reverse course, the same people who once invoked its authority will promptly denounce the same institution they once claimed was sacrosanct. In case anyone still doubted, this pathetic shilly-shallying reveals the truth that many of us have long known: “follow the science” was always just a tribal shibboleth. It’s pure politics. It’s only true when the right politician sits in the White House.

The Journal found one guy willing to criticize the move. Richard Hughes, a “lawyer and vaccine advocate,” said he was worried about immunocompromised people who preferred to have friends and family vaccinated. He also said the change would “have a behavioral impact on whether people choose to get vaccinated.”

In other words, Hughes just appealed to guilt and fear (i.e., it will hurt immunocompromised and increase hesitancy). Neither of his arguments were based on science, or more importantly on whether the jabs are safe and effective. I.e., Hughes appealed to emotion instead of science. So much for following the damned thing.

Finally, conservative critics have long complained that President Trump has not publicly denounced the vaccines. But what is he doing? The people he appointed are unwinding the whole corrupt ball of mRNA strands, that’s what. And the only reason they are in government at all —Kennedy, Bhattacharya, Makary— is because they opposed the shots.

It’s coming.

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Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran an odd little story headlined, “Exclusive | This Air-Traffic Controller Just Averted a Midair Collision. Now He’s Speaking Out.” The story concealed its good news in a personal interest anecdote about an air traffic controller-slash-whistleblower who is probably a terrific guy but, let’s be honest, appears to be a bit of a character. Check out the picture attached to the article:

Cigar, rings on every finger, spiked metal collar, studded leather bracelet, tattoos, all capped off with the open shirt and multiple necklaces. He looks like a dressed-up drummer from a local heavy metal cover band attending a members-only cigar bar. Don’t get me wrong, none of that is disqualifying, it’s probably just a thoughtful moment captured on a gentleman’s night out. And at least his gender is clear and unconfused. Thank goodness for that.

Including overtime, Philadelphia air traffic controller Jonathan Stewart, 45, will earn $450,000 this year— as much as the President of the United States. He’s part of a union that, as the Journal drolly noted, negotiates very well for its members. But after handling a recent close call at Newark airport, Jonathan took “stress-related trauma leave,” which is another benefit union members enjoy. They are allowed up to 45 days of paid time off per year under that particular perquisite.

But Jonathan Stewart’s picture was oddly discordant for different reasons. For one thing, it was wild inconsistent with the prototypical Hollywood version of a harried air traffic controller. When they took Mr. Stewart’s photo in a lounge instead of at work, they were saying … what exactly? He’s drinking himself to death? But there’s no booze in the shot. (Later the article mentioned he also enjoyed drinking pricey Johnny Walker Blue, and why wouldn’t he? A solid choice.)

Were they painting a picture of Jonathan enjoying his stress leave? Maybe. After all, the article’s main point was about how ar=ir traffic controllers are totally stressed out these days. But if so, it was still a weird choice. Stewart looks pretty relaxed to me.

✈️ Anyway, near-misses and disgruntled traffic controllers have been perennial news topics for decades and reached a crisis crescendo during the Biden Administration. All Secretary Pete did was fire unvaccinated controllers and add DEI to an already overtaxed network of unionized people, mostly men, with extremely rare skills. Buried about two-thirds of the way through the article came the real story, carefully hidden, kind of like how AOC parks her Tesla in her neighbor’s garage.

Mr. Stewart has been a controller for 35 years (the first ten in the U.S. military). He’s seen the current crisis evolve. But now, “For the first time that I’m aware of, they are throwing money at the problem,” Stewart told the Journal. Nearing the end of the story, the Journal finally reported that the FAA, under the leadership of new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, has announced a complete overhaul of the nation’s antiquated ATC system.

Indeed, we must look to other news sourcesto learn that, last week, Secretary Duffy announced a 3-year modernization plan to completely overhaul the ATC system, including replacing 25,000 radios, 475 voice switches, 618 radars, developing new software, and building six new ATC centers by 2028, with an estimated cost in the “tens of billions.” Newark Airport —where Stewart works— would be a main beneficiary.

It’s one of Trump’s top priorities. Duffy told NPR that President Trump "doesn't want to pass this problem to the next administration, the next secretary, or the next set of victims."

The Journal also ignored Trump’s tweet last week saying, “Air Traffic problems are caused by the incompetent Biden Administration, as headed by, in this case, a total novice and political hack, Pete B. I WILL FIX IT!!!” This week, Congress continues wrangling over the budget, with Republican deficit hawks seeking more cuts while the FAA asks for a gigantic modernization package.

While the FAA modernization project isn’t as sexy as Trump’s public battle with Harvard (which the Ivy League is losing), it is another quiet win for the new Administration. At least, it’s a win if you want safer air travel in America. Chalk up another one.

Have a fabulous Friday! Coffee & Covid will be right back, tomorrow morning, with the Weekend Edition roundup of essential news and commentary.

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