The indictment of former FBI director James B. Comey on orders from Donald Trump is equal parts intimidating and laughable. It’s intimidating because it sends the message that the US president can order his Justice Department to find a way to charge political enemies — and, as Trump says, Comey won’t be the last.

But it also followed a Keystone Kops performance from Trump’s inexperienced prosecutor, and the charges look even weaker than expected. We doubt Trump’s critics will be particularly cowed by this performance. Nor should they be.

After Erik S. Siebert, the acting (Trump-selected) US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, declined to seek what he thought would be a flimsy indictment, Trump forced him out last week. The President installed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide with no prosecutorial experience, in the role. Siebert’s decision will age well.

Halligan reportedly presented the case against Comey to the Grand Jury herself, perhaps because no other prosecutor would. Grand juries are usually rubber stamps. They hear only one side of the story, they don’t need to be unanimous, and they need to find only probable cause — not likelihood of guilt.

Yet this Grand Jury rejected as insufficient one of the counts of lying to Congress that Halligan presented — a significant rebuke. Only 14 of 23 grand jurors reportedly voted to indict Comey on the two counts that were charged, barely above the 12 that were required.

Halligan then delivered to Judge Lindsey R. Vaala the charging document the Grand Jury rejected, as well as the one it accepted. “This has never happened before,” the judge said. Halligan’s statement announcing the charge initially misspelt “principle” as “principal”.

The approved indictment is short on detail, so it is possible that prosecutors have damning evidence that is not publicly available. But on the surface, it appears remarkably weak. It says Comey lied to Congress in 2020 about authorising media leaks regarding “an FBI investigation concerning Person 1.”

That most likely refers to a media leak regarding the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Comey’s then-deputy, Andrew McCabe, admitted to leaking the information. He said Comey approved after the fact, which Comey denied. But it is hard to see how this discrepancy adds up to a criminal charge. As Andrew C. McCarthy pointed out in National Review, Comey testified only that he did not authorise the leak in the first instance. McCabe’s version does not contradict that.

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” is the method of an abusive prosecutor. It often works because technical legal violations are fairly common. In this case, Trump told prosecutors who their man was. But they might not have even been able to come up with conduct they can credibly portray as criminal.

Comey’s real offence — in Trump’s eyes — is his handling of the Russia investigation stemming from Trump’s 2016 campaign. That investigation badly hobbled Trump’s first presidency for no good reason, and Comey is partly responsible. But the way to settle political scores is at the ballot box, where Trump has already won.

This is just the beginning of Trump’s revenge tour, of course. Perhaps he will have better luck pinning crimes on other targets. As it stands now, Trump’s opening indictment looks like an embarrassing dud. His opponents should be laughing more than cowering.