Press. voanews.com
The director of
the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, has been fired. President Donald Trump, in a blunt letter to
Comey Tuesday, told him: “You are hereby terminated and removed from office,
effective immediately.” The president added that Comey “is not able to
effectively lead the bureau.” FBI directors are appointed for a single 10-year
term. Comey was appointed four years ago. He was in California when he was
informed by staff of his firing.
So far, he has
not made any public statement.
The reasons for
Comey’s dismissal were outlined in two separate letters written by Attorney
General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein. They essentially accused
Comey of taking the law into his own hands. Comey “made serious mistakes”
handling the conclusion of the investigation of emails of Trump’s general
election opponent Hillary Clinton, wrote Rosenstein, accusing the FBI director
of usurping the attorney general’s authority when Comey concluded there should
be no prosecution of the former secretary of state.
It is not clear
why President Trump took the action now concerning events that occurred months
before he won last November’s presidential election. The surprise move drew
immediate strong reaction Tuesday evening along party lines in Congress. A
Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, said
“given the recent controversies surrounding the director, I believe a fresh
start will serve the FBI and the nation well."
John McCain, a
Republican who sits on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee,
said of Comey’s firing “the president does have that authority. I respect
that.”
Democratic
members of the Senate Judiciary Committee called Trump’s action “Nixonian” - a
reference to President Richard Nixon’s firing of officials investigating him
during the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
Democratic Party
senators are calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to continue the
Justice Department’s investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s
presidential campaign last year and Russia. On the Senate floor, Dick Durbin, a
Democrat who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, said any attempt to halt
or undermine the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the
presidential campaign “would raise grave constitutional issues.”
House Minority
Leader Schumer said he told Trump “you’re making a very big mistake” by firing
Comey, amid various investigations connected to the president’s 2016 campaign. “Why
now?” added Schumer. “Are people going to suspect coverup? Absolutely.” The
Rosenstein memorandum is based on long-standing principles governing criminal
investigations, but the timing - that is so problematic and concerning,” George
Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told VOA.
“This is an
important move to restore public confidence in the fair administration of
justice at the federal level,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Mr.
Comey did not seem to understand some of the laws he was asked to investigate
and unfortunately politicized his sensitive position as the FBI director.
President Trump took the right step in cleaning house at the FBI.
Earlier Tuesday,
the FBI notified Congress that Comey overstated a key finding in the
investigation of Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails during his congressional
testimony last week. It said Comey erred when he told a congressional
investigative panel that a Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, had sent "hundreds
and thousands" of Clinton's emails from the 2009 to 2013 period she was
the U.S. secretary of state to Abedin's estranged husband, disgraced
congressman Anthony Weiner. The actual number was far fewer, officials said.
Comey, played a
pivotal role in last year's U.S. presidential election, in which Trump defeated
Clinton. Last July, Comey said Clinton was "extremely careless" in
her handling of national security emails while she was the country's top
diplomat, but that no criminal charges were warranted. Then, in late October,
just before the election, Comey said he was reopening the investigation because
the FBI had discovered the Clinton emails on Weiner's computer.
Clinton blamed
Comey's reopened probe so close to Election Day on November 8 as one of the
reasons she lost the election. Two days ahead of the election, the FBI director
said that after investigators reviewed the new batch of emails it had found
nothing new and upheld its original finding that no criminal charges should be
filed against Clinton.
VOA's Pete
Heinlein contributed to this report.
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