Timing sets off questions,
President Trump WASHINGTON fired FBI Director James Comey before the Justice Department’s inspector general could complete a wide-ranging review of his handling of Hillary Clinton’s email investigation.
Two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz took the extraordinary step of publicly announcing a review of the FBI’s inquiry into Clinton’s use of a private server while secretary of State. Trump, along with Justice Department leadership, said Tuesday that Comey was dismissed for his controversial handling of the Clinton case.
But the fact that Comey was fired while his actions in the case were still being reviewed was raising questions among congressional leaders and legal analysts about the speed with which Attorney General Jeff Sessions and newly confirmed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended Comey’s dismissal.
Democrats and some Republican lawmakers challenged the timing of the director’s firing, suggesting it could be an attempt to redirect attention from the FBI and congressional investigations into whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
“The timing and reasoning incites people to believe that something is being covered up,” said North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is reviewing possible Russian interference in the 2016 election along with the House Intelligence Committee.
An “incredulous” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Trump and the Justice Department to explain why there was little reference to the Russia investigation in Comey’s dismissal.
“If the reason for firing Comey was his handling of the Clinton investigation, why now?” Feinstein asked.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., meanwhile, specifically referenced the inspector general’s investigation, saying that review could have brought an independent assess- ment of Comey’s fate.
“Why didn’t the president wait for the conclusion of the inspector general’s investigation?” Schumer said Wednesday. “There is little reason to believe that Mr. Rosenstein’s letter is the true reason Mr. Comey was dismissed.”
In a three-page memo to Sessions outlining the case for Comey’s removal, released by the White House, Rosenstein offered a scathing account of Comey’s management of the Clinton inquiry. Rosenstein specifically took issue with Comey’s unusual news conference in July announcing that the FBI was recommending Clinton not be prosecuted, and his public announcement just 11 days before the November election that he was reopening the inquiry.
“I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken,” Rosenstein wrote.
The written assessment, assembled during Rosenstein’s first 10 days on the job, did not, however, mention the inspector general’s inquiry, which had been going on for nearly five months — and was being directed from offices on the same floor as the new deputy attorney general.
That’s not because it was secret. The launch of such internal Justice Department inquiries are rarely accompanied by a press release, but Horowitz, the inspector general, felt it necessary because of the cascade of requests for an investigation that poured in from lawmakers and even members of the public.
As attention turned to the transition to the Trump administration, little more was said about the internal inquiry that promised an exhumation of events Clinton has claimed helped doom her bid for the White House — until last week. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey offered an animated defense of the Clinton case.
He acknowledged the inspector general interview but indicated there may be a need for follow-up questioning.
“Lordy, has this been painful,” Comey said of the firestorm prompted by his actions in the Clinton case. “I’ve gotten all kinds of rocks thrown at me, and this has been really hard. But I think I’ve done the right thing.”
Horowitz has declined to comment on the course of the review and the timing of its conclusion.
Ron Hosko, a former assistant FBI director who’s familiar with inspector-general matters, said the administration would have been better served by waiting for completion of Horowitz’s review.
What’s more, Hosko said, “the way they did it” — allowing Comey to learn of his firing from media reports — “was insulting to him and to the entire FBI.”
“The timing and reasoning incites people to believe that something is being covered up.” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.