In his letter firing FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump managed to make the termination a little personal.
Read: Trump’s bizarre letter telling FBI Director James Comey he’s fired
Trump manages to make the letter a bit about himself.
Specifically, check out the second paragraph (emphasis mine):
Dear Director Comey:
I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.
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.
It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Donald J. Trump
It seems like Trump knew what the main criticism of Comey’s termination would be: The FBI has been investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, so it sure seems convenient for Trump that he’s managing to get rid of the director of that agency. In this letter, Trump is trying to not so subtly tell people the Russia investigation has nothing to do with the termination — because, hey, the FBI told Trump that it’s really not investigating him personally.
So what reason has the Trump administration given for firing Comey? Emails!
In a letter recommending Comey’s firing, the Justice Department argued that Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation was so bad that it caused the public to lose trust in the FBI. It cited, for instance, a press conference last year in which Comey criticized Clinton’s handling of her private email server, even as he admitted that the FBI didn’t uncover evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Then in October, just days before the election, Comey released a letter that suggested there was new evidence in the Clinton investigation — evidence that turned out to be nothing of importance.
There were also the more recent allegations, uncovered by ProPublica, that some of Comey’s testimony to Congress in the past week about the Clinton investigation was false.
All of that looked to many Americans like the FBI getting involved in a touchy political issue — a major no-no for a top law enforcement agency in the US. That loss of trust, Trump suggested, led him to fire Comey.
Of course, it also lets Trump put someone new in place who will oversee the ongoing investigation into his presidential campaign’s ties to Russia.
See More:
