Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

President Trump fired James B. Comey, the director of the FBI.

The reason given was his off-again, on-again investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, which Democrats blame, in part, for their presidential defeat. But why would Trump make an issue of that, long after his election?

Democrats are claiming that the real reason is Comey’s investigation into the Russian involvement in the election and the connection between the Trump administration and Vladimir Putin. (See this and this.) And, indeed, if President Trump thinks that Comey had anything to do with Trump Tower being bugged, that could be a factor.

But I suspect it had more to do with Comey’s poor performance at his recent congressional testimony, in which he made inaccurate statements about Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s e-mails that he had to take back. The White House released a memo from the Justice Department saying that the FBI’s reputation has been hurt by Comey and that a new start would be helpful. President Trump makes decisions spontaneously, and he doesn’t like his administration to look bad.

But much of the media is playing this like Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” when he fired the people investigating his misdeeds. You would think that the Democrats would cheer the firing of Comey. But they have another agenda now.

From Devlin Barrett, President Trump dismisses FBI Director Comey – The Washington Post:

FBI Director James B. Comey has been dismissed by the president, according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer – a startling move that officials said stemmed from a conclusion by Justice Department officials that he had mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails.Comey was fired as he is leading a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether associates of President Trump may have coordinated with Russia to meddle with the presidential election last year. That probe began quietly last July but has now become the subject of intense debate in Washington. It is unclear how Comey’s dismissal will affect that investigation. . . .

Officials said Comey was fired because senior Justice Department officials concluded he had violated Justice Department principles and procedures by publicly discussing the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of private email. Just last week, President Trump publicly accused Comey of giving Clinton “a free pass for many bad deeds’’ when he decided not to recommend criminal charges in the case.

Officials released a Tuesday memo from the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, laying out the rationale behind Comey’s dismissal.

“The FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice,’’ Rosenstein wrote. “I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.’’

[Keep reading. . .]

Photograph of FBI Director James Comey by Federal Bureau of Investigation [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons