The controversial decision to abruptly fire FBI Director
James Comey has mired President Trump in a political morass from which it will be
very difficult to extricate himself. Handled differently, Comey’s ouster could
have been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, but the timing and
execution of Trump’s decision throws Trump’s motive and competence into
question.
There has been bipartisan agreement that Comey bungled the
handling of the Clinton email investigation during the campaign albeit for
different reasons. Republicans point to Comey’s press conference and decision
not to recommend that charges be filed against Ms. Clinton last July. Democrats
believe that his eleventh-hour letter to Congress on October 28 probably
cost Clinton the election. In recent months, Democrats in particular have
been calling for Mr. Comey’s head.
President Trump was justified in firing Comey, but the
manner of the dismissal has caused more problems that it has solved. An easy
way to handle the problem of Comey’s performance would have been to simply ask
for Comey’s resignation as the new administration moved into Washington. Instead,
Trump, who had alternately
berated and praised Comey on both the email investigation as well as the
accusations of Russian interference in the election, invited him to stay on as
head of the FBI for the remainder of his 10-year term. Trump then waited four
months before firing Comey in a very abrupt manner. Trump’s
letter dismissing Comey and letters recommending the dismissal from
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are
all dated May 9, suggesting that the firing was high priority that was handled
quickly.
Comey was not given any advance warning and was not even in
Washington to receive the president’s letter. The Los
Angeles Times reports that Comey learned of the president’s decision while
speaking with FBI agents in Los Angeles. The news was announced on a television
screen in the room where the meeting was taking place.
“He was caught flat-footed,” a source said.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
told CNN
that the decision to remove Comey was not made hastily. “The President has lost
confidence in Director Comey and, frankly, he'd been considering letting Director
Comey go since the day he was elected,” she said. Sanders added that the
decision was based on concerns that Rosenstein had raised on Monday, prompting
the president to ask him to put a recommendation in writing.
Sanders said that the “big catalyst” for the decision was
last week’s congressional testimony in which Comey discussed holding the July
2016 press conference without notifying his superiors. “Director Comey made a
pretty startling revelation that he had essentially taken a stick of dynamite
and thrown it into the Department of Justice by going around the chain of
command,” she said. “That is simply not allowed.”
Nevertheless, Comey’s comments were not an unexpected
revelation and dealt with an event that occurred 10 months ago. There was
seemingly no reason to execute the firing in such a hurried and haphazard
manner, especially since Comey’s boss at the time, Obama Administration
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, had ample time to take disciplinary action of
her own after the incident.
If not the Clinton press conference, then what other
pressing reason would there be to fire Comey? The obvious answer for many
people is the investigation of Russia ties to members of the Trump campaign.
Even though Trump somewhat strangely thanks Comey as he fires him “for
informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation,”
the same was not true of other
members of Trump’s campaign staff.
Far from being behind the president, the Russia
investigation seemed to be ramping up. CNN
reported that federal prosecutors had issued subpoenas to associates of Michael
Flynn, the National Security Advisor and campaign advisor that Trump fired
earlier this year for lying
about his communications with the Russian ambassador. The Washington
Post reported Comey had requested more funds for the Russia investigation
from Rod Rosenstein, the same Justice Department official who recommended that the
president fire him.
While the evidence that the firing was an attempt to
short-circuit the Russia investigation is purely circumstantial, the clumsy manner
in which the edict was handed down has fueled suspicion and criticism of both
Trump and the Justice Department. If Trump should dismiss Andrew McCabe, the
current Acting Director of the FBI who has deep connections to the Democrats
and the Clintons, as some
rumors suggest, he would appear all the more guilty of a cover-up.
At this point, regardless of whether he fired Comey to stop
the Russia investigation or not, the president seems to have been inept in his
handling of the situation. If Trump did want to stifle the investigation, the
firing was a transparent act that was unlikely to accomplish its goal. Comey’s
firing may even make it more likely that a special prosecutor or independent
congressional panel is established to investigate the matter.
If quashing the investigation was not Trump’s goal, then he
certainly made it appear as though he had something to hide with the abrupt
timing and the callous way that Comey learned that he was out of a job. A more
discreet way of making the announcement, such as privately demanding that Comey
resign to spend more time with his family, would have benefitted Trump as well
as the FBI director.
Handled differently, the replacement of Comey could have been
a unifying act that would have won President Trump praise from both parties. As
it is, the president has further alienated even members of his own party and
ensured that the Russia scandal will not go away anytime soon.
Did the president attempt a clumsy cover-up of an
investigation that was getting too close to home or did he fire Comey for the
right reasons in a rushed and awkward manner. Neither possibility is a good
one, but one is considerably worse and more dangerous than the other.
Originally published
on The Resurgent
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