Trump ousts FBI director
Dismissal comes amid Russia investigation Comey was leading
President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the director of the FBI, James Comey, abruptly terminating the top official leading a criminal investigation into whether Trump’s advisers colluded with the Russian government to steer the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
The stunning development in Trump’s presidency raised the specter of political interference by a sitting president into an existing investigation by the nation’s leading law enforcement agency. It immediately ignited Democratic calls for a special counsel to lead the Russia inquiry.
Trump explained the firing by citing Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, even though the president was widely seen to have benefited politically from that inquiry and had once praised Comey for his “guts” in his pursuit of Clinton during the campaign.
But in his letter to Comey, released to reporters by the White House, the president betrayed his focus on the continuing inquiry into Russia and his aides.
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” Trump said in a letter to Comey dated Tuesday. White House officials refused to say anything more about the three occasions Trump cited.
Officials said Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, pushed for Comey’s dismissal. But many in Washington, including veteran FBI agents, saw a carefully choreographed effort by the president to create a pretense for a takedown of the president’s FBI tormentor.
“I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails,” Rosenstein wrote in another letter that was released by the White House, “and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.”
Reaction in Washington was swift and fierce. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said the firing could make Americans suspect a cover-up. Trump lashed back
later Tuesday night in a Twitter post: “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer stated recently, ‘I do not have confidence in him [James Comey] any longer.’ Then acts so indignant.”
Many Republicans assailed the president for making a rash decision that could have deep implications for their party.
The dismissal ended the long-deteriorating relationship of Trump and Comey, who repeatedly collided publicly and privately. For Trump, a president who puts a premium on loyalty, Comey represented an independent and unpredictable director with enormous power to disrupt his administration.
Comey learned from news reports that he had been fired while addressing bureau employees in Los Angeles. While Comey spoke, television screens in the background began flashing the news. In response to the reports, Comey laughed, saying that he thought it was a fairly funny prank. But shortly after, Trump’s letter was delivered to FBI headquarters in Washington.
Comey was three years into a 10-year term, an unusually long tenure that Congress established to insulate the director from political pressure. Though the president has the authority to fire the FBI director for any reason, Comey is only the second director to be fired in bureau history. President Bill Clinton fired William S. Sessions in 1993.
The White House has not said what precipitated the firing, a significant question because the Justice Department’s stated reasons were well known even when Trump decided in January to keep Comey on the job. Trump watched last week as Comey testified on Capitol Hill, offering his first public explanation of his handling of the Clinton email case. He said that he had no regrets about his decisions but that he felt “mildly nauseous” that his actions might have tipped the election to Trump.
The Clinton controversy centers on a news conference Comey held last July, when he broke with longstanding tradition and policies by publicly discussing the Clinton case and chastising Clinton’s “careless” handling of classified information. Then, in the campaign’s final days, Comey announced that the FBI was reopening the investigation, a move that earned him widespread criticism. At the time, though, Trump and his attorney general, Sessions, praised Comey for actions that are now at the heart of Comey’s firing.
Trump “saw an opening” to fire Comey after the testimony, a White House official said. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, argued against it, delaying — but not overruling — the decision. Trump received the documents from the Justice Department on Tuesday. Aides also compiled a stack of news clips criticizing Comey.
Comey’s deputy, Andrew McCabe, a career FBI officer, became acting director, the Justice Department said. The White House said the search for a director will begin immediately.
The firing puts Democrats in a difficult position. Many had hoped that Clinton would fire Comey soon after taking office, and blamed him as costing her the election. But under Trump, Comey was seen as an important check on the new administration.
Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser, said the firing was not related to Russia. “Today’s actions had zero to do with that,” she said in a contentious interview on CNN. Democrats were unconvinced. “Any attempt to stop or undermine this FBI investigation would raise grave constitutional issues,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-lll. “We await clarification by the White House as soon as possible as to whether this investigation will continue and whether it will have a credible lead so that we know that it’ll have a just outcome.”
But the president’s firing of Comey was far more consequential. Sally Yates and Preet Bharara both were holdovers, and might only have served in the Trump administration for a matter of days or weeks.
A longtime prosecutor who served as the deputy attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, Comey came into office in 2013 with widespread bipartisan support.
The defining moment in Comey’s career — until Tuesday night — came in 2004 during a hospital room standoff with White House officials who wanted to pressure the Justice Department to reauthorize a secret wiretapping program. Comey stood his ground.
Trump has been furious with news stories about his campaign’s ties to Russia. The White House has been critical of the leaks at the heart of those stories and tried unsuccessfully to enlist Comey in an effort to rebut the stories.
In a Twitter message this week, Trump accused Comey of being “the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton,” accusing him of giving her “a free pass for many bad deeds.” After the president accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his office, Comey publicly declared those claims untrue.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Comey “should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired.”
Before announcing the firing, Trump called leaders on Capitol Hill to tell them of his decision. Schumer told Trump that he was making a “big mistake.” Trump paused.
“OK,” he said. “We’ll see.”