In what marks a major change in United State’s most powerful intelligence agency, President Donald Trump has fired FBI director James Comey. Ironically, Trump has cited FBI’s handling of Clinton emails as the main reason behind his removal.
Trump forwarded a letter to Comey informing him of his removal, stating that it was recmmended by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In the letter, he said:
While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.
Wow, that is pretty surprising. Not to mention that President Trump probably received election time benefits when the case first came to light and there had not been any altercations reported between the president and his intelligence chief since then.
Trump further added:
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Commenting on the removal through a memo, Deputy Atorney General Rosenstein said:
The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges to never repeat them.
It should be remembered that Comey decided to hold a press conference and publicly stated that he would not be recommending charges against Clinton, while investigations into the latter’s emails was underway. The Deputy AG also said that the FBI director should have let the federal prosecutors make that decision.
He added:
When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context, silence is not concealment.
It should be mentioned that the FBI is currently investigating possible links between the Russian government and Trump campaign and whether the former had any hand in the latter’s victory. However, that is neither here nor there.
Meanwhile, this is just the second time in the history of the US that a president has dismissed the FBI director. Various powerful entities, including democratic senators and organizations have called out the decision as outrageous and some have even suggested asking the former FBI director to testify upon the status of his organization’s investigation into Trump’s alleged links with Russia, in an open hearing.
