A week that shook even the most hardened Washington watchers
IT WAS a grey-skied late afternoon in Washington and the city was winding down for the evening when the bombshell landed: the president had fired FBI director James Comey.
Mr Comey was briefing FBI agents in Los Angeles on Tuesday, when a stunned-looking news reporter flashed up on the television screen in the room announcing his dismissal. Just four years into his 10-year term, he thought it must be a strange prank. But soon aides led him into a side room.
Keith Schiller, the president’s body guard, had been to Mr Comey’s office at FBI headquarters and delivered a letter signed by Mr Trump. It said: “You are hereby terminated and removed from office.”
Mr Trump kept his deliberations ahead of the Comey sacking to a small circle, so when phones began ringing off the hook in the White House, staff were caught off-guard. Sean Spicer, Mr Trump’s press secretary, huddled among tall bushes with his press office staff on the North Lawn as they scrambled to learn enough about the situation to address the gaggle of journalists.
Refusing to be filmed, Mr Spicer eventually said the President had acted on the recommendation of the justice department. He said Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, had written a long memo detailing shortcomings in Mr Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
But the explanation was met with disbelief. Before the US election, Mr Trump had praised Mr Comey’s decision to announce he was reopening the investigation into Mrs Clinton. What had changed his mind? And why had he waited some five months before firing him? Democrats began calling for an independent special prosecutor to lead the Russia investigations.
In the hours after the sacking it emerged that Mr Comey had sought increases in funding and manpower for his bureau’s investigation into Mr Trump’s aides and Moscow. It was reported that prosecutors had issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who was removed from his post for failing to disclose the nature of his contact with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Meanwhile, jovial photographs of Mr Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov meeting Mr Trump in the White House for a scheduled visit on Wednesday caught the officials off-guard when they were published in Russia.
Mr Trump took the matter into his own hands. He said he had not acted on the advice of the justice department and had long planned to fire Mr Comey. Mr Rosenstein had reportedly threatened to resign, incensed that he had been named as the prime motivator for the sacking.
In an interview with NBC news on Thursday Mr Trump said: “In fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a madeup story,” he said.
Mr Trump delivered a swift character assassination, describing Mr Comey as a “showboat” and a “grand-stander” and saying that under his leadership, the “FBI has been in turmoil”.
His words angered colleagues of Mr Comey, sparking what one informed source termed a burgeoning “war” between the White House and the FBI. Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director, said Mr Comey “enjoyed broad support within the FBI, and still does” and the Russia inquiry would continue.
On Friday, The New York Times carried a story, citing friends of Mr Comey, claiming that the FBI director had refused a request from Mr Trump for a loyalty pledge during a dinner shortly after the inauguration.
The story infuriated Mr Trump, prompting him to write on Twitter: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations be-
‘I said to myself, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story’
fore he starts leaking to the press!” The Comey firing has angered both Democrats and Republicans. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman said he was “troubled” by Mr Comey’s sacking, and he and Mark Warner, the Democrat vice chairman presented a united front, reportedly meeting quietly almost daily this week. With Washington in crisis, one official said they were “trying to be the adults in the room”.