Why in the world would President Trump fire James Comey as FBI Director.
What is the upside for Trump?
1. He gets rid of a “wild card” FBI Director who seems to follow his mind/conscious wherever it leads him
2. The Dept. of Justice regains “institutional control” over the FBI, no longer will it be perceived as a separate entity
3. If Comey was getting close to Trump or his inner circle, it will delay the inevitable.
4. Democrats should be happy – they didn’t like Comey either (really, it’s true!!!!)
5. Getting rid of Comey might put the “she would’ve won if it weren’t for the October Surprise” stuff to rest.
6. He gets to say “YOU’RE FIRED” to another guy on TV (Comey wasn’t even given the common courtesy of notice, he was out of town in the middle of a speech when the Networks began broadcasting his ouster).
But lets really go into the darkness and conspiracy of what might have happened in the Comey firing. Unlike many of these posts, let’s delve into the “maybes and might bes”, not necessarily the facts.
1. Comey had just gone to the Deputy Attorney General to ask for additional funding for the Russian Investigation. According to “unnamed sources in the White House” Trump was furious about the continuing focus on Russia.
2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is a well seasoned and respected lawyer. Reading his memo on Comey to the Attorney General, it sounds more like a political hatchet job than a lawyerly account of why Comey should be fired. Where are the citations of Dept. of Justice policy, where are the legal precedents? Instead, it is a document full of “I think” and “others say.” I would expect a great deal more from him, even on two weeks notice. The suspicion – he was handed the document by a political flak, and told to sign on. It’s too bad he couldn’t find the courage of Eliot Richardson or Don Ruckleshaus (from Saturday Night Massacre/Nixon era) and stand up to the politics. Instead, he signed on, and lost his opportunity to write history.
3. Comey, who had access to the necessary intelligence to know, discounted Trump’s claim that “Trump Tower was tapped.” It angered Trump so much, he wanted Comey out.
4. Rudy Guiliani, a well known Comey critic, all of a sudden is in and out of the White House again. Doesn’t this just sound like a Guiliani move, particularly when you remember his “contacts” with the FBI New York Office who were so upset with the fact charges didn’t come out of the Clinton Email investigations.
5. Attorney General Sessions, ostensibly recused from all decisions regarding the Russia investigation, helps lead the way to decapitate the Russia investigation. It’ll be fun to hear how he justifies that in testimony in front of some committee.
6. “Teflon” Vice President Pence was right in the middle of this decision, which also puts him right in the center of what could be seen as an obstruction of the Russia investigation.
7. And finally, what are the optics of bringing Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, into the White House the day after the firing? Who in the West Wing thought that was a good idea?
So what’s the next move?
The pressure is going to be on the Congressional Republicans. How long can they stand it, before they either: call for a special prosecutor (also the way that Rosenstein, the official who has that responsibility, can redeem himself) or set up a different investigative committee. The problem with all of that – time time time!!!
If nothing happens – will this guarantee a change in power in the House (more likely) or the Senate (less likely) or both? With the full investigative power of either or both arrayed against the Trump administration, it will grow very ugly. Think of the Benghazi investigation on steroids – or for folks my age – think of the Watergate investigation at quadruple the speed!
IF this all comes down, IF the Trump administration and Trump himself collapses, we can look back at this moment as the true beginning of the end. In Watergate, it was the moment when Alexander Butterfield acknowledged that there were tapes of all White House conversations, in this one, the day Comey was canned.
