Comey firing puts Russia probe at risk

This appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

In a remarkable and unnerving spectacle, the president who benefited from Russian interference in the election has fired the man leading the investigation into said interference, FBI Director James Comey.

Congress has dragged its feet until now, but it must face one indisputable conclusion — and quickly. It must appoint an independent prosecutor to conduct this investigation, one who is wholly divorced from the executive branch. GOP lawmakers must also put aside — as their predecessors did decades earlier — their own squeamishness about taking action perceived as hostile to a president of their party.

The administration lobbed this bombshell with what has become its trademark cavalier style, followed by an immediately muddying of facts and reason. A career public servant was sacked as if he were week-old trash, told on a moment’s notice by Trump that “you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.” What follows is among the many puzzlements that must be untangled. Trump states that even though Comey had assured him on three separate occasions that he was not being investigated, “I nevertheless concur with the judgement (sic) of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.” Why connect Trump’s investigative status with Comey’s sudden unworthiness to lead the bureau?

The answer to that question is one of the many the American people now must rely on Congress to learn.