Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey (washingtonpost.com)

The White House said today that President Trump has fired FBI director James Comey. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement: "President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office. President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 'The FBI is one of our Nation's most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,' said President Trump. A search for a new permanent FBI Director will begin immediately." The Washington Post reports: Earlier in the day, the FBI notified Congress that Comey misstated key findings involving the Hillary Clinton email investigation during testimony last week, saying that only a "small number" of emails had been forwarded to disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner, not the "hundreds and thousands" he'd claimed in his testimony. The letter was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, more than a week after Comey testified for hours in defense of his handling of the Clinton probe. In defending the probe at last week's hearing, Comey offered seemingly new details to underscore the seriousness of the situation FBI agents faced last fall when they discovered thousands of Clinton aide Huma Abedin's emails on the computer of her husband, Anthony Weiner. "Somehow, her emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information," Comey said, adding later, "His then-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the secretary of state." At another point in the testimony, Comey said Abedin "forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information." Neither of those statements is accurate, said people close to the investigation. Tuesday's letter said "most of the emails found on Mr. Weiner's laptop computer related to the Clinton investigation occurred as a result of a backup of personal electronic devices, with a small number a result of manual forwarding by Ms. Abedin to Mr. Weiner." The letter also corrected the impression Mr. Comey's testimony had left with some listeners that 12 classified emails were among those forwarded by Abedin to Weiner.

Comments

Highly unsual

[Fire_Wraith]

FBI Directors are traditionally non-partisan, and serve a 10 year term that is not at the pleasure of the president, unlike political appointees. This isn't to say that the President doesn't have the power to fire the Director, but it hasn't been done before, and would be a very unusual step. The question then is what is the cited reason for it, because given the current situation and ongoing investigations, it's really really suspicious, on par with the Watergate "midnight massacre" where Nixon fired both the Attorney General and the Deputy AG before getting to someone that would agree to fire the Special Prosecutor that was investigating Watergate.

In other words, it had better be a really damn good reason.

Re:Highly unsual

[Fire_Wraith]

The reason being cited from what I'm reading so far is that he's being fired over mishandling the Clinton email probe. That his AG and Deputy signed off on it does not reassure me in the least. This is at best a minor, minor thing, one far less problematic than errors made by past FBI directors - ones that left people dead for instance. .. which leaves me with absolutely zero confidence that this is anything but an excuse to get rid of him and put a compliant stooge in that will quash the ongoing investigations.

Would it work? Probably not, no more than Nixon replacing the Attorney General in order to get special prosecutor Archibald Cox fired quashed the Watergate investigation/scandal. At worst, I think you'd see the damning evidence start to leak out into the open, spurring more action.

Re:How gullible are you?

[Jeff Hornby]

Actually Comey is a long term member of the Republican party.

Re:OMFG u have got to be kidding

[Beau1080p]

FBI Directors are traditionally non-partisan, and serve a 10 year term that is not at the pleasure of the President, unlike political appointees. This isn't to say that the President doesn't have the power to fire the Director, but it hasn't been done before, and would be a very unusual step. The question then is what is the cited reason for it, because given the current situation and ongoing investigations, it's really really suspicious, on par with the Watergate "midnight massacre" where Nixon fired both the Attorney General and the Deputy AG before getting to someone that would agree to fire the Special Prosecutor that was investigating Watergate.

In other words, it had better be a really darn good reason.

Re:Employees fired by Trump:

[Boronx]

They were all just investigating people very close to Trump for committing crimes in support of Trump, so clearly there's no danger to Trump in these investigations and no possibility of him getting dragged into them.

Re:Thank the Universe (I don't believe in a god)

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC, 'cause I still have a job and a clearance and I don't need the hassle.

Fire_Wraith is right - this is what usually happens with inadvertent disclosure of classified info over an unclassified system. I too have seen this happen exactly as described.

However, once you get beyond "accidental disclosure" and go to deliberately sending this info knowingly over unclassified networks onto unsecured systems - and later destroying the materials yourself instead of reporting it promptly to the appropriate people to cover up the act - that gets into very dangerous territory, from lose your clearance and get fired to throw your ass in jail territory.

I cannot believe anyone who holds a clearance and saw what Clinton did would think for a moment that they could get off so easy too if they did the same thing.