Comey ‘requested more resources for Russia probe’
Revelations raise questions about Trump’s reasons for firing FBI chief
JAMES COMEY told politicians days before he was sacked he had asked the Justice Department for more resources to pursue the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in last year’s presidential election, it has been revealed.
Three US officials have said Mr Comey met Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last week to make the request.
Mr Comey then alerted politicians with ties to the concurrent congressional investigations into Russia’s meddling, according to the officials.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said it was false to say Mr Comey had asked Mr Rosenstein for money for the Russia investigation.
The revelations raise new questions about what prompted President Donald Trump to fire the FBI director.
The White House has cited a memo from Mr Rosenstein in which he criticises Mr Comey’s handling of last year’s investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton’s email practices.
The memo makes no mention of the FBI’s Russia investigation, which is probing both Russia’s hacking of Democratic groups last year and whether Trump campaign associates had ties to Moscow’s election interference.
Mr Trump defended his decision yesterday, asserting in a flurry of tweets that both Democrats and Republicans “will be thanking me” for his action. He did not mention any effect the dismissal might have on the 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,” Mr Trump said in the Oval Office, where he was joined by the former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.
The abrupt firing of Mr Comey threw into question the future of the FBI’s investigation and raised suspicions of an underhand effort to stymie a probe that has overshadowed the administration from the outset.
Mr Trump has ridiculed the investigations as “a hoax” and denied any campaign involvement with the Russians.
Democrats compared Mr Comey’s removal to President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday night massacre” during the Watergate investigation and renewed calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Mr Kissinger was Nixon’s secretary of state in 1973, having just moved over from being his national security adviser.
Vice-President Mike Pence said Mr Trump had made “the right decision at the right time”. The Justice Department said Mr Sessions was interviewing candidates to serve as an interim replacement.
Mr Comey’s deputy, the FBI veteran Andrew McCabe, has become acting director.
In his brief letter to Mr Comey, Mr Trump said the sacking was necessary to restore “public trust and confidence” in the FBI. He pointedly thanked Mr Comey for telling him three times “that I am not under investigation”.
The FBI has not confirmed that Mr Comey ever made assurances to the president.
Mr Comey was nominated by president Barack Obama for the post in 2013 to a 10-year term, though that appointment does not ensure a director will serve the full term.
Mrs Clinton has partially blamed her loss on Mr Comey’s disclosure to Congress less than two weeks before election day that the email investigation would be revisited. those A 100-YEAR-OLD woman is among the victims of a series of distraction thefts in the homes of elderly and vulnerable people in Dundee. Police called the thefts – believed to have been carried out by the same man in the last two weeks – “despicable”. The suspect, who is aged 30-35, may be sleeping rough and travelling by bicycle. He is about 5ft 6in, thin, with short brown or blond hair. IT is The Herald’s policy to correct errors as soon as we can and all corrections and clarifications will usually appear on this page.
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