Why now?
In a sudden and completely unexpected turn of events President Trump at the total end of the regular business day fired FBI Director James Comey…apparently without really telling him. Some reports say he found out from television. And other reports have said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had just hours before had said the president had full confidence in Mr. Comey. And there is a lot of speculation on why he was fired but one of the documents issued by the White House suggested his ‘mishandling’ of the Clinton emails. So why now? That’s history and activity that the president had actually praised in the past. But here’s some of the press:
Trump made no mention of Comey’s role in the Clinton investigation, which she has blamed in part for the election result. But in announcing the firing, the White House circulated a scathing memo, written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, criticizing Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe, including the director’s decision to hold a news conference announcing its findings and releasing “derogatory information” about Clinton.
Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the bureau’s Trump-Russia probe, Rosenstein, his deputy, has been in charge.
Tuesday’s stunning announcement came shortly after the FBI corrected aspects of Comey’s sworn testimony on Capitol Hill last week. Comey told lawmakers that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, had sent “hundreds and thousands” of emails to her husband’s laptop, including some with classified information.
On Tuesday, the FBI told the Senate Judiciary Committee that only “a small number” of the thousands of emails found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most had simply been backed up from electronic devices.
I think we can all pretty much see that for the baloney that it is.
On the ongoing Russian investigation:
“Given that Director Comey was responsible for the Russia investigation, it’s extremely concerning that the president would decide to fire him where there has been no indication he has done anything to justify it,” said Matt Olsen, a former senior Justice Department official under President Obama.
“The president’s actions today are shocking,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that is itself investigating the Russian issue. “It is deeply troubling that the president has fired the FBI director during an active counterintelligence investigation into improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
So was his investigation getting too close to the White House? Or to Attorney General Jeff Sessions himself? Will we ever know?
This whole thing isn’t unheard of and I am not surprised considering the disarray evident in the Trump administration.
But what is your take on it? Why now?
It had to be due to the MSNBC hiring of George Will–and the Mika and Joe nuptial revelations.
Thank God that we can find comfort in knowing that Rachel Maddow is really on this case. From the brain trust of Rachel, George Will, Charlie Sykes, Greta van Sustern (and don’t forget Mika and Joe!), the MSNBC “resistance” will get to to the bottom of all this…
I nominate Maddow to replace Comey. And Sessions’ position should be eliminated. Let him go back to the KKK.
None of us like Jeff B. Sessions, Duane.
I think the “Russia” story is exists, but is not all that important, and serves as a distraction to many other more important issues, especially here in Wisconsin as we try to put up a fight to the 2010 regime.
MSNBC’s brand of “resistance” smells more than a little Vichy to me: resistance and Vichy are opposing terms, to be precise.
Yes, onevote I am aware of the “Vichy” government in the south of France which shamefully co-existed with the Nazi occupation of Northern France in WW2.
I can’t agree with your opinion on a comparison to MSNBC’ “resistance” as “Morning Joe” has brutally exposed Trump as a liar, a cheat, and a phony.
Sill vous plait.
Duane, fwiw, imho Mika and Joe, are only opposed to Trump, because they ally with the elites. Trump stopped the Trans Pacific Partnership and none of the elites can be sure what he’s going to do next. Trump’s the GOP’s populist leader taking advantage of the vast economic insecurity. Democrats’ failure to line up behind Sen. Sanders is appalling.
No sane person is opposed to impeaching and convicting Trump, but Pence will be a lot worse as long as Dems don’t support Bernie.
Maddow and MSNBC do the occasional quality reporting, but–except for Chris Hayes–when it comes to the real economy, the part that makes stuff, the part that matters, they are mostly AWOL.
I’m not sure what you meant by “I think we can all pretty much see that for the baloney that it is” but Comey not only said “hundreds or thousands” which was reported as hundreds OF thousands, but he said something like “what if we had found the missing 30,000 emails!?” Others described them as “a handful” and the time necessary to crosscheck them with what they already had was no technological marvel, but in fact a delay; it could have been done in one day, OR, prior to Comey rushing out a statement that he was reopening the failed investigation. It was never made clear whether those emails were actually forwarded or downloaded to Wiener’s laptop or his wife simply had a duplicate access to her email account. No one has ever demonstrated that Wiener had access to them. I don’t like that Comey was fired in the middle of his current trump investigation and the mechanism of doing so was completely bogus, but we really can’t ignore that he acted completely inappropriately in how he affected the election.
WRT MSNBC, Joe and Mika, Charlie Sykes is now appearing on MSNBC. Not sure if that’s permanent. IMHO they are on the front lines of trying to keep poor Trump voters in the GOP.