Trump Fires FBI Director Comey
Last Updated: May 09, 2017
11:01 PM
FILE - FBI Director James
Comey prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 3, 2017, before
the Senate Judiciary Committee.
WHITE HOUSE —
The director of the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, has been fired.
President Donald Trump, in a blunt letter to Comey Tuesday,
told him: “You are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective
immediately.” The president added that Comey “is not able to effectively lead
the bureau.”
FBI directors are
appointed for a single 10-year term. Comey was appointed four years ago.
Comey was speaking to a group
of FBI employees in California when he learned he had been fired. Media reports
say he saw mention of his dismissal on TV screens but initially thought it was
a prank. So far, he has not made any public statement.
Comey “made serious
mistakes” handling the conclusion of the investigation of emails of Trump’s
general election opponent Hillary Clinton, wrote Rosenstein, accusing the FBI
director of usurping the attorney general’s authority when Comey concluded
there should be no prosecution of the former secretary of state.
It is not clear why
President Trump took the action now concerning events that occurred months before
he won last November’s presidential election.
FILE - Senate Armed
Services Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks on Capitol Hill in
Washington, Jan. 5, 2017.
A Republican member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, said “given the recent
controversies surrounding the director, I believe a fresh start will serve the
FBI and the nation well."
But for some other
Republican members of Congress the president’s action caused a breach.
Richard Burr, chairman of
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he is "troubled by the
timing and reasoning" of the Comey firing. He called the dismissal "a
loss for the bureau and the nation."
John McCain, a Republican
who sits on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee, said in a
statement that “while the president has the legal authority to remove the
director of the FBI, I am disappointed in the president's decision to remove
James Comey from office.”
Another Republican
senator, Jeff Flake, on the Twitter social media network said he “had spent the
last several hours trying to find an acceptable rationale for the timing of
Comey’s firing. I just can’t do it.”
Congressman Justin Amash,
a Republican member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said on Twitter
he is “reviewing legislation to establish an independent commission on Russia”
and termed “bizarre” Trump’s reference in the termination letter to Comey
noting the FBI director had assured the president repeatedly he was not under
investigation.
Senate Minority Leader
Charles Schumer of N.Y., holds up a letter to Republicans about healthcare
while speaking to the media, May 9, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Democratic members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee called Trump’s action “Nixonian” -- a reference to
President Richard Nixon’s firing of officials investigating him during the
Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
Democratic Party senators
are calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to continue the Justice
Department’s investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s presidential
campaign last year and Russia.
On the Senate floor, Dick
Durbin, a Democrat who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, said any attempt
to halt or undermine the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the
presidential campaign “would raise grave constitutional issues.”
Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer said he told Trump “you’re making a very big mistake” by firing
Comey, amid various investigations connected to the president’s 2016 campaign.
“Why now?” added Schumer.
“Are people going to suspect coverup? Absolutely.”
"The Rosenstein
memorandum is based on long-standing principles governing criminal
investigations, but the timing - that is so problematic and concerning,” George
Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told VOA.
Direct link
Hours after Comey’s firing
CNN reported that grand jury subpoenas were recently issued in Alexandria,
Virginia relating to the FBI’s Russia probe seeking business records from
associates of Michael Flynn, who Trump fired as national security advisor.
The subpoenas would be the
first known significant escalation of activity in the government investigation
into possible connections between the associates of the Trump presidential
campaign and Russia.
Earlier Tuesday, the FBI
notified Congress that Comey overstated a key finding in the investigation of
Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails during his congressional testimony last week.
It said Comey erred when he told a congressional investigative panel that a
Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, had sent "hundreds and thousands" of
Clinton's emails from the 2009 to 2013 period she was the U.S. Secretary of
State to Abedin's estranged husband, disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner. The
actual number was far fewer, officials said.
VOA's Pete Heinlein
contributed to this report.
