by Chris Strohm , Margaret Talev , and Steven T. Dennis
May 9, 2017
President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey amid the agency’s investigation of Russian interference in last year’s election, saying the bureau needed new leadership to restore “public trust and confidence.”
The administration’s reasoning, outlined by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, was Comey’s handling of the probe into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails and his decision to announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions both recommended Comey’s dismissal, the White House said in a statement.
The statement made no direct mention of the Russia probe. But Trump alluded to it in a letter to Comey: “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.”
Comey is only the second FBI chief to have been fired. Democrats condemned the move, saying it was an effort to undermine the Russia probe, which includes any possible links between Russia and people associated with Trump. They demanded appointment of a special prosecutor to carry it forward.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Trump “has catastrophically compromised the FBI’s ongoing investigation of his own White House’s ties to Russia. Not since Watergate have our legal systems been so threatened, and our faith in the independence and integrity of those systems so shaken.”
‘Constitutional Issues’
Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No.2 Democrat, said, Comey’s firing during “an active FBI investigation of the president” raises “grave constitutional issues.”
While Republicans were slower to react, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina said he was “troubled by the timing and reasoning of Director Comey’s termination.” He said it “further confuses an already difficult investigation by the committee.”
Senator John McCain of Arizona praised Comey and said in a statement that “the president’s decision to remove the FBI Director only confirms the need and urgency” for a “special congressional committee to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.”
U.S. intelligence agencies have found that Russia hacked into Democratic emails and released them during last year’s campaign in an effort to hurt Clinton and, ultimately, to help Trump win.
‘Wrong to Usurp’
Rosenstein, in a memo circulated by the White House on Tuesday, faulted Comey for publicly announcing his decision to close the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. The director “was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution,” Rosenstein said. He added that “It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement.”
Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation and the roiling debate over Russian interference in the presidential campaign left him with few political allies in Washington.
He was vilified by Republicans last summer when he initially closed the investigation into Clinton’s email use, saying that she and her aides were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information but that no prosecutor would be able to bring charges.
Democrats faulted Comey for reopening the Clinton email probe just before Election Day while failing to state in public that the agency was investigating possible Trump campaign links to Russian officials.
Russia Ties
Comey confirmed in March that the FBI is investigating whether any of Trump’s associates colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 campaign for president. He also publicly contradicted Trump’s assertion that the Obama administration “wiretapped” Trump Tower last year.
With Comey’s departure, the FBI chief will be succeeded, at least temporarily, by his deputy, Andrew McCabe. But McCabe might not be politically acceptable to Trump and his leadership team.
McCabe came under scrutiny last year when he helped oversee the Clinton investigation even though his wife had accepted donations from Democratic political organizations for a failed 2015 election bid to the Virginia state senate. The FBI said in a statement at the time that McCabe “played no role" in his wife’s campaign "and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind."
Trump’s startling move came less than a week after the FBI chief defended his decision to reveal that the agency was restarting its probe into Clinton’s email use just days before last year’s election. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee May 3 that the decision was difficult and that it “makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election.”
Yet, he added, he’d do it all again.
The only FBI director to be fired previously was William Sessions, who was dismissed by President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno in 1993 over financial abuses.
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