One of the most infamous movies of the 1990s — directed by the ironic sleazebag Paul Verhoeven and written by the unironic sleazebag Joe Eszterhas — was “Basic Instinct,” which starred Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas and inexplicably grossed over $350 million at the box office.
I’ve never seen it, although I’m familiar with the salacious, very R-rated leg-crossing scene involving Stone — which has become part of our shared cinematic language, for worse or for even worse.
I’m also familiar with the plot, inasmuch as one exists: Stone’s character is a trashy crime novelist whose lover mysteriously meets the same fate of the victim in her most recent bestseller. The question is, does this make her the prime suspect in the killing?
I cannot avouch for knowing James Comey’s streaming habits, so I’m unsure whether or not the guy has watched anything more than the leg-crossing scene in “Basic Instinct.” (He’s enough of a creep that I’m willing to go that far, however.)
If he’s seen the whole movie, though — and, let’s face facts, the National Security Agency probably has that data on hand somewhere — I would urge the FBI and the rest of the Department of Justice to put their investigation of the former FBI director and current professional NeverTrumper into overdrive. Because — spoiler alert in case you haven’t managed to catch the movie in the 33 years since it was released — it really does turn out that Sharon Stone was the killer, and Comey seems to be going down the same path.
So, in case you missed all of Thursday in bed with the flu or something, Comey — fired by Trump during his first administration — is back in the news for all the wrong reasons due to an Instagram post in which he sent a not-so-subtle message about a president who faced at least two credible assassination attempts on the 2024 campaign trail alone:
Just James Comey causally calling for my dad to be murdered.
This is who the Dem-Media worships. Demented!!!! pic.twitter.com/4LUK6crHAT
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 15, 2025
Yes, “86” (Merriam-Webster: “to eject, dismiss, or remove [someone]”) “47” (the current president). How would that happen? Well, given the pusillanimity of Rep. Shri Thanedar, not through the mechanism of impeachment, nor through anything but the exhaustion of his term or, erm, the exhaustion of his time on this planet earth, pretty much.
At this point is it fair to call Comey a complete villain?
“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey said in the post, which was subsequently deleted.
“I posted a picture earlier of some shells I saw on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” Comey said. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”
So that’s James Comey, former FBI director, doing something so blatantly obvious and cretinous that current FBI director Kash Patel, among others, is looking into it.
We are aware of the recent social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump. We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran. Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) May 15, 2025
So now that we have the basics, let’s move from former FBI director James Comey to current hack crime novelist James Comey, who happens to have a new book coming out on May 20.
The book is apparently one in a series with a character called Nora Carleton, a federal prosecutor who … well, I haven’t read any of these masterpieces, but I’d urge anyone unfamiliar with the world of fanfiction to look up the terms “Mary Sue” or “self-insert.” I’m guessing one or both applies.
However, what interested us was the blurb from Publisher’s Weekly, which might actually militate against Nora being the fictional representation of Comey. Instead, he sounds an awful lot like the villain, given recent circumstances:
Former FBI director Comey (Westport) reunites the protagonists of his first two legal thrillers for his strongest outing yet. U.S. attorney Carmen Garcia is trying to take down Samuel Buchanan, a far-right media personality with a popular podcast vilifying those he thinks are destroying America: intellectuals, immigrants, and people of color. Garcia believes Buchanan went far beyond the protection of the First Amendment when he singled out his enemies by name and suggested “something should be done” about them. His fans have obliged, killing or grievously injuring some of his foes. In a series of tense and exhilarating courtroom scenes, Garcia works with Deputy U.S. Attorney Nora Carleton to bring Buchanan down. Then, just as they’ve convicted him, a new threat emerges: some of his followers have planned an act of terror at an upcoming UN convention. Comey’s ripped-from-the-headlines plot — which, with its focus on Nora’s hand-wringing about following legal and constitutional protocol, is easy to read as a bit of self-reflection — never loses steam. This proves that Comey the crime novelist is here to stay.
Yes — just as we remember Sharon Stone as a fictional crime novelist, we have an unfortunate opportunity to remember James Comey as a real one. The same way we remember him as a real FBI director, a real figure in the Russiagate hoax, and (still, somehow) a real figure in our national discussion. He’s here to stay as a crime novelist, all right, and for all the wrong reasons.
It’s not just that there’s no other way to interpret “86 47” except as a dog whistle that was really just a whistle. Comey is dense, but not stupid, and he was fully aware what he was doing, if not perhaps aware of the backlash it would create.
But beyond that, here’s a man who has a crime novel coming out where his villain is testing the boundaries of the First Amendment by calling for the deaths of his enemies … and here’s James Comey with that post, which does exactly that after one man is dead after shooting Trump and another is awaiting trial after trying to shoot him.
Are we to pretend that the man who once occupied the same position as J. Edgar Hoover was unaware of his facts when posting casual Instas? Come on. And with the novel coming out, this is so on-the-nose as to be embarrassing, even by the standards of James Comey.
I’m not even going to check Polymarket to see if there’s odds yet on whether he tries to recreate Sharon Stone’s leg crossing/uncrossing scene during his inevitable non-apology apology interview with MSNBC. They should be up soon, though — and when the bet hits the market, put your money on the “yes.” This isn’t a man who takes the subtle route — and it’s resulted in the funniest (and also scariest) case of projection we’ve seen in many a year.
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