Trump defends Comey firing, says both parties will thank him
President Donald Trump defended his firing of FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday, asserting in a flurry of tweets that both Democrats and Republicans “will be thanking me.” Trump did not mention any effect the dismissal might have on FBI and congressional investigations into contacts between his 2016 election campaign and Russia.
“He wasn’t doing a good job. Very simply. He was not doing a good job,” Trump said in brief remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, where he was joined by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The abrupt firing of Comey threw into question the future of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible connections to Russia and immediately raised suspicions of an underhanded effort to stymie a probe that has shadowed the administration from the outset. Trump has ridiculed the investigations as “a hoax” and denied any campaign involvement with the Russians.
Democrats compared Comey’s ouster to President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” during the Watergate investigation and renewed calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Ironically, Kissinger, who was meeting with Trump, was Nixon’s secretary of state in 1973, just sworn in after being Nixon’s national security adviser.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, to appear before the Senate to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding Trump’s action.
However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brushed aside calls for a special prosecutor, saying a new investigation into Russian meddling would only “impede the current work being done.” He noted that Democrats had repeatedly criticized Comey in the past and some had called for his removal.
Trump made a similar case on Twitter, saying Comey had “lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington,” adding: “When things calm down, they will be thanking me!”
Vice-President Mike Pence said at the Capitol that Trump had made “the right decision at the right time.”
The Justice Department said Sessions was interviewing candidates to serve as an interim replacement. Comey’s deputy, FBI veteran Andrew McCabe, became acting director after Comey was fired.
In his brief letter Tuesday to Comey, Trump said the firing was necessary to restore “public trust and confidence” in the FBI.
The administration paired the letter with a scathing review by Rosenstein, the recently confirmed deputy attorney general, of how Comey handled the investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton’s email practices, including his decision to hold a news conference announcing its findings and releasing “derogatory information” about Clinton.