Fired: FBI Director, James Comey

President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, shortly after he provided false testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about classified emails from Huma Abedin found on Anthony Weiner’s computer.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office,” Press Secretary Sean Spicer said a statement released just after 5:30 pm on Tuesday evening.
The written statement from Spicer, confirmed that Trump ‘acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.’
Trump said: ‘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.’
While the President said it was because of Comey’s  handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton it also raising questions about the future of a probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Commenters soon compared the firing to Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” where he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was investigating him in the Watergate scandal.

President Trump fired  James Comey with immediate effect after he misled the Senate on how classified emails ended up on pervert Anthony Weiner’s computer based on the recommendations of AG Jeff Sessions [right] and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein

 

‘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,’ the letter read in part.
John Podesta, who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman in 2016, posted on Twitter that Trump was in fact facing an FBI investigation
‘Didn’t you know you’re supposed to wait til Saturday night to massacre people investigating you?’ he asked in a tweet – a reference to President Nixon’s notorious mass firings during Watergate.
The letter is the latest twist in the astonishing chain of events set off by Hillary Clinton deciding to use a private server while she was Secretary of State.
Comey appeared before the Senate last week to explain why he had written a letter to members of Congress at the end of October revealing a renewed investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified emails.

A letter from AG Jeff Sessions to President Trump and another from the President to Director James Comey and the latter’s career was over

In his sworn testimony, Comey told senators that Huma Abedin, a former top Hillary Clinton aide and Weiner’s estranged wife, made ‘a regular practice’ of forwarding ‘hundreds and thousands’ of emails to her husband Anthony Weiner, ‘some of which contain classified information.’
But the Justice Department sent the Judiciary Committee a letter late on Tuesday acknowledging that Comey’s statement was inaccurate.
Spicer punted earlier in the day when he was asked whether Comey’s job was secure.
‘I haven’t asked him,’ he said then. ‘I have not asked the president since the last time we spoke about this.’
The FBI is also probing Comey’s controversial decision to notify lawmakers just before the election that his team was re-examining its investigation into Clinton’s emails by looking into messages found on Weiner’s laptop.
The letter is viewed by many as costing Clinton the election, since she lost to Trump by less than a single percentage point in key swing states after polling indicated she was well in front of her opponent before the late move.
Rosenstein told the president in writing on Tuesday: ‘I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails.’
And Sessions wrote him in a letter: ‘I have concluded that a fresh start is needed at the leadership of the FBI.’
Spicer said just last Wednesday that the president had confidence in Comey, an Obama appointee.

 Not convinced: John Podesta, insinuates Trump is trying to stymie investigations into his campaigns

In a swift move Tuesday, the president personally called Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.  to inform her that he was firing his FBI director.
‘President Trump called me at 5:30 p.m. and indicated he would be removing Director Comey, saying the FBI needed a change,’ Feinstein said in a statement.
‘The next FBI director must be strong and independent and will receive a fair hearing in the Judiciary Committee.’
The Trump administration distributed a one-page summary to reporters that it called ‘additional background information and context’ about the surprising personnel change.
It consisted of anti-Comey statements from Democrats including Sen. Chuck Schumer, who said last Wednesday that ‘I do not have confidence in him any longer.’
The supplemental information also cited an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that ‘[t]he best service Mr. Comey can render his country now is to resign.’