{"id":28080,"date":"2017-05-12T05:45:17","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T09:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=28080"},"modified":"2017-05-11T17:46:09","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T21:46:09","slug":"trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"donald-j-trump-1342298_640\"<\/a>President Trump\u2019s order firing F.B.I. Director James Comey said that the action was taken because of how he handled Hillary Clinton\u2019s e-mail case. \u00a0Then we were told that the F.B.I. Director was fired because of recommendations by Justice Department Officials.<\/p>\n

Now in an interview with MSNBC\u2019s Lester\u00a0Holt, \u00a0President Trump says that he was going to fire Comey \u201cregardless\u201d of what the Justice Department had to say. \u00a0He also called Comey a \u201cshowboat\u201d and a \u201cgrandstander.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

In the interview, the president kept returning to the F.B.I.\u2019s investigation of Russian influence in the U.S. election, insisting that Comey told him three times that he was not under investigation. \u00a0And, indeed, looking into Russian efforts to influence the election does not mean that the president himself is under investigation, as such. \u00a0Meanwhile, accounts from inside sources within the White House<\/a>\u2013leaked by somebody\u2013say that the president was indeed pre-occupied and \u201cenraged\u201d over the Russia investigations.<\/p>\n

But firing the head of the F.B.I. does not make those investigations \u201cgo away.\u201d \u00a0Agents assigned to that investigation will keep on doing their work. \u00a0The interim head of the agency, Andrew McCabe, said as much<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is why I think President Trump\u2019s action is not equivalent to Richard Nixon\u2019s \u201cSaturday Night Massacre,\u201d in which he fired the Special Prosecutor investigating him. \u00a0Even if that were Trump\u2019s intention, the action would not squelch the investigations. \u00a0(And we see how well Nixon\u2019s more calculated action worked for him.)<\/p>\n

I think we are just seeing, again, the results of President Trump\u2019s impulsiveness, his undisciplined words, his dysfunctional staff, and his governmental inexperience.<\/p>\n

Those things can be fixed or compensated for, but they need to be addressed soon\u00a0lest they\u00a0fatally damage\u00a0his presidency.<\/p>\n

From Dave Boyer,\u00a0<\/span>Donald Trump says he planned to fire James Comey \u2018regardless\u2019 of Justice recommendation \u2013 Washington Time:s<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

President Trump<\/a> said Thursday that he planned to fire FBI<\/a> Director James B. Comey<\/a> regardless of whether Justice Department officials advised it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to fire regardless of the recommendation,\u201d Mr. Trump<\/a> said in an interview with NBC<\/a> News at the White House. \u201cThere\u2019s no good time to fire, by the way.\u201d. . .<\/p>\n

The president fired Mr. Comey Tuesday, saying he no longer had his confidence to do the job. The firing was recommended by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.<\/p>\n

The White House rejected a report that Mr. Rosenstein was so disturbed by the West Wing\u2019s placing responsibility on him for the firing that he threatened to quit after only two weeks on the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there was ever an attempt to pin the decision on the deputy attorney general,\u201d said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders. \u201cWe know that the president\u2019s been thinking about this for a long time. The president is the only person who can fire the director of the FBI<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Illustration: \u00a0Drawing of President Trump by Maialisa, Pixabay, CC0, Public Domain<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2019s order firing F.B.I. Director James Comey said that the action was taken because of how he handled Hillary Clinton\u2019s e-mail case. \u00a0Then we were told that the F.B.I. Director was fired because of recommendations by Justice Department Officials. Now in an interview with MSNBC\u2019s Lester\u00a0Holt, \u00a0President Trump says that he was going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,36],"tags":[4905,4923,5420],"class_list":["post-28080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-politics","tag-james-comey","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-trump-fires-fbi-director"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump changes his story on the Comey firing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Trump gives yet another account of why he fired FBI Director James Comey.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Trump gives yet another account of why he fired FBI Director James Comey.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-12T09:45:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-05-11T21:46:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/files\/2017\/05\/donald-j-trump-1342298_640-242x300.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/\",\"name\":\"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-05-12T09:45:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-05-11T21:46:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"President Trump gives yet another account of why he fired FBI Director James Comey.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He has authored over 25 books on Christianity and culture, literature, classical education, and theology. Dr. Veith previously held academic and editorial roles at Concordia University Wisconsin and WORLD Magazine. A respected voice in Lutheran and classical education circles, he holds a Ph.D. in English and several honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Jackquelyn, live in St. Louis and have three children and twelve grandchildren.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_Edward_Veith\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/author\/geneveith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing","description":"President Trump gives yet another account of why he fired FBI Director James Comey.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing","og_description":"President Trump gives yet another account of why he fired FBI Director James Comey.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/","og_site_name":"Cranach","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/","article_published_time":"2017-05-12T09:45:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-05-11T21:46:09+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/files\/2017\/05\/donald-j-trump-1342298_640-242x300.png"}],"author":"Gene Veith","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Gene Veith","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/","name":"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-05-12T09:45:17+00:00","dateModified":"2017-05-11T21:46:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1"},"description":"President Trump gives yet another account of why he fired FBI Director James Comey.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/05\/trump-changes-his-story-on-the-comey-firing\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trump changes his story on the Comey firing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/","name":"Cranach","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1","name":"Gene Veith","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Gene Veith"},"description":"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. He has authored over 25 books on Christianity and culture, literature, classical education, and theology. Dr. Veith previously held academic and editorial roles at Concordia University Wisconsin and WORLD Magazine. A respected voice in Lutheran and classical education circles, he holds a Ph.D. in English and several honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Jackquelyn, live in St. Louis and have three children and twelve grandchildren.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gene_Edward_Veith"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/author\/geneveith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}