MAY 10, 2017
Photo: Getty
“America first!” You remember that applause line that then-candidate Donald Trump regularly used on the campaign trail to gin up his audiences? He’s been using it less and less now that he’s in the White House, but I’m not sure he can credibly use it again after the events of Tuesday.
Seemingly from out of nowhere, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. a move that caused consternation on both sides of the aisle as Republicans and Democrats shook their collective heads and asked “Why?”
Comey, who in 2016 had led the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of classified material on a private e-mail server, became the darling of the GOP when he threw a stinkbomb into the campaign, reopening the investigation of Clinton just 11 days before the election and closing it up again just a few days later. (“Oops, never mind.”) But, according to many political observers, Comey’s actions prompted just enough doubt among voters who were on the fence between the two candidates to finally decide on Trump, a swing that made all the difference in the election.
After taking office, the new President would periodically make pronouncements about his continued faith in Comey, and when the FBI director took on the job of investigating the truthfulness of Trump’s assertion that former President Obama wiretapped his office and Trump Tower, Trump fully expected that Comey would verify the President’s claim.
Reports released on Wednesday indicated that, as Comey was set to reveal his report before the Senate on May 3, Trump asked for a preview, which Comey declined to provide, enraging the President. The fact that Comey then appeared before the Senate and stated that Trump’s accusation against Obama was a nothingburger got Trump even angrier. To make things worse for the President, at the end of that hearing, Comey dropped the bombshell news that the FBI was investigating the Trump Administration for its political ties to Russia as well as Trump himself for his business ties there.
At that moment, Comey became the face of the FBI investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, reportedly setting Trump off every time he spotted Comey on TV. According to the political website Politico on Wednesday, aides have confirmed that Trump would begin to scream at the TV whenever he saw news clips about the Russian probe. What broke the camel’s back was Comey’s reported request to the Department of Justice for more money and and support for a deepening investigation of the Russia ties, to presumably get closer to its connections to Trump.
So Trump made the decision to fire the FBI Director, and he did it in the most classless way possible. A face-to-face meeting? No. A phone call? Of course not. Trump sent his former bodyguard with the letter firing Comey (that included the nugget that Trump claims that Comey told him three times that he was not the subject of the investigation, whatever that’s worth) to the FBI building. Comey, unawares, found out at an L.A. FBI event when the news came over the TV that he was fired. He thought he was being punked but learned that it was legit. What a petty way to handle it.
For their part, White House operatives have offered all kind of reasons for the firing since Tuesday night. They first trotted out how badly Comey handled the Hillary Clinton e-mail kerfuffle. If that’s the case, what not fire him on January 21 after you take office? Nitwit. When that didn’t fly, they tried Comey’s recent testimony that mixed up some figures on surveillance. That didn’t pass the laugh test. Finally they settled on “He wasn’t doing a good job,” an accusation refuted on Wednesday by interviews with FBI staff, who said almost to a person that Comey had their back.
If Trump thought that by firing Comey, he’d keep the Russia investigation away from his door, the blowback that he has received from both Republicans and Democrats has certainly shattered that illusion. What it has made clear is that Trump has essentially hijacked the nation’s top investigative bureau and changed its purpose from protecting America to protecting the President and all of his business assets.
Trump First!
