Trumped up timing

Comey firing now was a dumb, bad move

What matters is not James Comey. What matters is the vacancy his firing creates. President Donald Trump will fill it. Trump will, therefore, nominate whoever takes charge of the investigation into the most damaging scandal of his young administration.

The Senate will have to confirm Trump’s choice, but it is still his choice. Even if the president is pressured into appointing a special counsel, Trump still gets to choose. His Justice Department names those.

That is why removing Comey as head of the FBI would be alarming under the best circumstances. The present circumstances are horrible.

Trump says the Russian scandal behind all this is “fake news.” This “fake” scandal has, so far, forced a national security adviser to resign. Then the attorney general had to recuse from the matter. Then the head of the House Intelligence Committee embarrassed himself. Then he was forced to recuse, too. All that was before Comey was fired Tuesday.

Oh, and Russian hackers just did the same thing to France’s election that they did to ours last year. In both cases, they shared their ill-gotten goods with any outfit that would use them. They committed crimes. They shared the evidence with anyone who would look.

“Fake,” my foot. This much real scandal has not swirled around a president since Monica Lewinsky became famous for all the wrong reasons.

Comey was fired, purportedly, for messing up an investigation last year. The subject was Hillary Clinton, who was running against Trump.

His firing came 110 days after the new president took office. The events Comey was fired for took place months before that swearing-in. Right now, the Department of Justice’s inspector general is reviewing those same Clinton-related events. That report is not due for months. Therefore, this firing manages to be both too late and too soon for its stated reason.

So months passed by first. Then Tuesday, a memo to justify the firing was turned in. The still-recused attorney general’s recommendation to act on the memo is dated the same day. Later that very day, the president issued the letter firing Comey. It was hand-delivered to the FBI office — while Comey was in Los Angeles. He learned of his firing from televisions in the lobby of the hotel at a bureau recruiting event.

The firing of Comey is like the removal of Michael Flynn. A case can be made for both — an airtight one for Flynn. There is no good explanation, though, for waiting so long first, then doing it so suddenly.

Flynn, by the way, was that disgraced national security adviser. He resigned for being a Russian informant. He also lied about it. He only quit, though, after news of his misdeeds leaked out. The president was told weeks earlier of Flynn’s acts. He was also told Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail. The president did nothing.

Comey’s firing happened one week after a grand jury issued subpoenas to business associates of Flynn. The FBI is looking into Russian agents’ hacking of 2016 campaign emails. The FBI is also looking into business ties between Russia and Trump’s associates.

Sometimes, your friends are a bigger danger than your enemies.

Now suppose I am all wrong. Suppose the firing of Comey is justified and has nothing to do with Russia. Better late than never, so to speak.

There is such a thing as too late. Firing Comey right now looks like an attempt to stifle the Russian affair’s investigation — whether it was or not.

Two-thirds of Americans wanted an independent investigation of the Russian matter before this fiasco, according to polls. Even if there was no cover-up, two out of three people suspect there could be. Probably more do now.

Republicans waited eight long years to regain the White House. Now they are stuck with this embarrassment, complaining about leaks that reveal its details. They should grab a knife instead. Trump’s administration is like cancer. The sooner it is cut out, the faster recovery can begin. A better man stands ready.

Whatever one thinks of Vice President Mike Pence’s politics or his principles, his integrity is solid. It is no exaggeration to say that the most morally compromising thing Pence has done, at least from the conservative moral point of view, is to support and remain loyal to Donald Trump.

Mike Pence for president.