President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

According to TPM, Trump now says in an interview with NBC that he was going to fire Comey regardless of whatever recommendation Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein made. This is after his underlings (including Pence) have spent the last 48 hours claiming that the decision came directly from Rosenstein, and Trump was merely following his legal advice.

If he said anything, he probably said that Trump was not the target of the investigation at this point.  Which is not the same thing as not being under investigation.

Quote:

But the reaction people (in the media) have does in fact hinge on whether one in inclined to believe the Russia allegations.   If one is inclined to see the Russian allegations as a nonsense partisan exercise that is an attempt to undermine Trump's ability to govern, then firing Comey is sensible.   If one sees the Russian allegations as a legitimate investigation into serious criminal acts, than this is bad news/evidence of cover up.

Well, one thing I would hope we could all agree on is that there's not much legitimacy in a system which would permit a President (pick any you wish) to fire the head of the agency that would be charged with investigating that President for a crime (pick any you wish). 

That's not "arm's length".  That's not even "finger's length" -- no matter how small your hands are.

voice of the damned wrote:

Pesky wrote:

I don't think anyone could compare Sessions firing with what happened to Comey.

Yeah, I agree. The reason I brought up Sessions is that somebody had asked if there had ever been an FBI director fired before.

I didn't think you had. I've seen enough of your posts to know you wouldn't get sucked into a comparison like that.

 I just wanted to make clear the reason Sessions was fired. In the posted article is merely said a number of FBI agents had lost confidence in Sessions.  That  could be comparable to Trump's contention that FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey.

I thought it was important to state that Sessions was fired was for personal use of FBI resources, not for his conduct of any investigation.

New Book 'Shattered' By Clinton Insiders Reveals That 'Blame Russia' Plan was Hatched 'Within twenty-four Hours' of Election Loss

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/862801658132254720

"The authors detail how Clinton went out of her way to pass blame for her stunning loss on 'Comey and Russia.' The book further highlights how Clinton's Russia-blame-game was a plan hatched by senior campaign staffers John Podesta and Robby Mook, less than 'within twenty-four hours, after she conceded..."

Now, Trump is trying to intimidate Comey into silence.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473

Unionist wrote:

What amazes me is that in a broken country - where one individual can fire the FBI director on a whim - no one even questions that power. They only question how it is used. I figure that if you give one individual that power, and he uses it, suck it up and shut up. Or fix your absolute monarchy.

Exactly this! I recently said something very similar in a different thread, though you were much more concise.

http://rabble.ca/comment/5254396#comment-5254396

kropotkin1951 wrote:

It seems to me that the RCMP Commissioner and the head of CSIS serve at the pleasure of the Crown i.e. the PM and Privy council. If the politicians can't fire the spooks then who is charge? 

I've been trying to find Canadian precedents for who can dismiss such officials. The case that came to mind was D'Arcy Finn, the head of CSIS, who resigned(not fired) some time in the '80s, over the handling of the Air India bombing. Presumably there was some consensus somewhere that things had gone south with the investigation, and he felt he had no choice but to quit. 

But what would happen if it was blatantly obvious that the head of CSIS had screwed up on some file, but he refused to quit? Do we just have to accept his continued rule? I'm assuming there would have to be SOME way of getting rid of the guy. 

Watergate redux?

https://twitter.com/Olivianuzzi/status/863090770500308992

I have just learned why Comey was fired. This is information that was unknown to me, but I was turned towards it by an article about the firing in which Comey was referred to as a 'towering' figure. It didn't mean he was especially significant in his work, it meant he was tall.

In fact, James Comey is 6'8" tall, and every time Trump had to talk to him while they were in physical contact, Trump, who is 6'2", would have had to look up to him. Knowing Trump as we do, that would have been an intolerable situation for him.

It would also explain why he referred to Comey as a 'grandstander' and a 'showboater'. No one around Trump will be allowed to be taller than he is. I also suspect Comey's hands were significantly larger than Trump's, another obvious ploy by Comey to diminish Trump.

Comey had to go.

Comey with a regular sized human:

josh wrote:

The FBI is part of the Justice Department, and its director reports to the Attorney General.  There was a director who couldn't be fired.  His name was J. Edgar Hoover.  And he couldn't be fired because he kept blackmail information on everybody.

Exactly my point, josh. You don't question the royal papal power of the president to fire the head of the FBI. You just want it done according to your convenience. That's very sad. It's an indication that your country has no viable democratic structures. Would you have been pleased if Obama had the guts (something he never had) to fire Comey for sabotaging Hillary's election hopes by making a police investigation public? I (given papal power) would have fired Comey first and then had him investigated for corruption charges. But the same useless coward Obama - who couldn't even keep a cheap promise to close Guantanamo - let Hillary go down the drain. I think I know why.

CrossTalk: Comey Shown the Door

https://youtu.be/VvMt9ekP1tw

"Cleaning house or political coup threatening democracy? Take your pick..."

First time I saw that absolute power questioned was on election night when david frum pointed out that there was no conflict of interest law for the president, and that with a normal person it is not necessary. If we want to make comparisons our system is far more monarchical , both literally and figuratively and our politicians usually manage to stick to convention..
I am more surprised why some don't see why a president taking that step is a constitutional crisis - an assault on the judicial branch by the chief executive. The convention is that an FBI director is supposed to have a 10 year term, not fired at whim.
As for how broken it is, let's see how this plays out. It sure doesn't seem to have had the desired result so far.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/863397370884698112

There are five major political groups in the U.S. The elite/establishment Democrats, the elite/establishment Republicans, ordinary Democrats, ordinary independents, and ordinary Republicans.

The fact that Comey was terrible at his job and should resign is literally the only thing that, until Trump fired him, absolutely everyone agreed on. They can't agree on TPP or environmental regulations or taxes or Healthcare or whether minorities are real people too, or even bizarre things like who really killed JFK or if the WTC was an inside job. But they all agree and have called for months for Comey to resign #fireComey.

Since Comey didn't seem to get the hint, Trump fires him, and now "it's a constitutional crisis" and we're back to square one with no common ground.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I am more surprised why some don't see why a president taking that step is a constitutional crisis - an assault on the judicial branch by the chief executive. The convention is that an FBI director is supposed to have a 10 year term, not fired at whim.

The FBI is part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch. By American constitutional law, the president is the nation's chief law enforcer, in charge of "tak[ing] care that the laws be faithfully executed". The 10-year convention is far more recent; no FBI director has ever served a 10-year term, with William Webster coming the closest, and both Robert Mueller and J. Edgar Hoover serving for longer. Which isn't to downplay the ongoing clusterfuck over this firing, just to say it's not a constitutional crisis in the same way refusing to hold a hearing for Obama's Supreme Court nominee was.

If Trump really wanted to kill any possibility of a criminal investigation, in fact, he could just issue himself a blanket pardon for all federal crimes, in much the same way Ford pardoned Nixon despite him not having been indicted yet. There's no check on that power.

The potential damage might not hang on anything being criminal or not. Whatever it may be, it is clearly important enough for trump to resort to obstruction of justice.

And technicalities aside, what we are talking about is obstruction of justice, not of the executive.

josh wrote:

Clinton wasn't just anyone else.  She had the highest security clearance.

She may have had high level security clearance, but the construction of the unencrypted unsecured private e-mail server exposed classified information to any potential hacker. That alone is egregious, whether or not any actual hacking happened.

josh wrote:

Yawn.  Watergate is just grasping at straws by a Democratic establishment seeking to blame a handful of flunkies for why they lost the 1972 election.  Please make it stop.

There's a difference. Watergate actually happened. Russiagate is a clear scapegoating attempt by the Democrats, as well as a deflection away from the Clinton family's own dealings with Russia.

Intent doesn't work like that. Unless you're too big to jail, intent applies to whether you intended to perform an action, not whether you intended to break the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

If it's illegal to whistle at someone, and you don't know it, and you whistle at someone, then you had intent to whistle and are criminally responsible. It doesn't matter that you didn't intend to break the law.

Clinton intended to set up a home server to store emails that she was sending and receiving. This is already mishandling of classified material even if her server was never compromised. She had intent to commit the act, and the act was illegal even if she was unaware it's illegal.

Edit to add:

A better example. If you set up lethal booby traps in your apartment before you move out, and then when the landlord is showing the apartment someone is killed, you won't get off because "you had no intention to kill someone." You intended to set up the traps and you knew or ought to have known that those traps might kill someone and that killing someone is illegal. It would be ridiculous for an authority in law enforcement to refuse to recommend charges because you "were just extremely reckless but had no criminal intent."

Cody87 wrote:

Intent doesn't work like that. Unless you're too big to jail, intent applies to whether you intended to perform an action, not whether you intended to break the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

If it's illegal to whistle at someone, and you don't know it, and you whistle at someone, then you had intent to whistle and are criminally responsible. It doesn't matter that you didn't intend to break the law.

Clinton intended to set up a home server to store emails that she was sending and receiving. This is already mishandling of classified material even if her server was never compromised. She had intent to commit the act, and the act was illegal even if she was unaware it's illegal.

 

Edit to add:

A better example. If you set up lethal booby traps in your apartment before you move out, and then when the landlord is showing the apartment someone is killed, you won't get off because "you had no intention to kill someone." You intended to set up the traps and you knew or ought to have known that those traps might kill someone and that killing someone is illegal. It would be ridiculous for an authority in law enforcement to refuse to recommend charges because you "were just extremely reckless but had no criminal intent."

It's not ignorance of the law.  Intent, or mens rea, is a part of nearly all criminal statutes.  It certainly is in the statutes Clinton was supposed to have violated.  

Your hypothetical is totally non-analogous.  Those type of actions are one of the exceptions to the intent rule because they are inherently dangerous to life and limb.

Nowhere near to the extent of being shot by a spring gun.

Right - and isn't intent and the level of intent the factor that differentiates of first degree murder, second degree murder and manslaughter?

So, bad analogy, anyway. And what happened or didn't happen, as Magoo points out, is also a factor.

In any case in regard to Hillary Clinton's email server: If there had been something to charge Clinton with, the Republicans would have seen her charged. But no matter how hard they pushed it, there wasn't a prosecutable offence. Asked and answered, done and over with. Can we please move the fuck on?

In any case, Trump himself felt that Comey's actions against Clinton during the election were fine, and said so on any number of occasions. So for him to now say that he fired Comey because of the way he handled Clinton is just plain old bullshit.

And whatever Comey did, or didn't do, with the Clinton file, it is true that the FBI is forbidden from engaging in politics. Comey was handling a situation that hadn't happened before, that is, the investigation of someone running for president of the USA. How could he conduct the investigation without crossing the boundary of interfering in politics? Everybody should see that is a delicate balance, especially with both sides in the election hammering the investigation on a daily basis, one side wanting more and the other less.  

I'm not saying he handled it correctly, but even I can cut him a bit of slack for dealing with a situation that had never ocurred before, and which it was obvious from the beginning didn't have a winning side. For him it was lose-lose.

I posted earlier that I thought Trump fired Comey because Comey is taller than him by 6 inches. I was joking of course, but in thinking it over, I'm not so sure I was wrong. Knowing Trump as we do, that would be the kind of thing that his fragile ego couldn't handle. Besides, I think he likes to appear 'presidential', and after his failures with the travel ban and the medical care legislation, he probably thought firing someone would add a bit of stature to his administratoin.

Back when, during the election, Melania Trump, in response to a reporter's question, said something like, 'I have two ten year olds to look after.' That was a reference to her son and her husband. People didn't pay a lot of attention to that statement, but they should have. Donald Trump is indeed that immature emotionally.

Yes, agree with you both. My frustration is that every time Comey comes up, we seem to have to re-prosecute the Clinton email debacle. It's a distraction from the current situation. Simply put, even if there is nothing to the allegations of collusion with a foreign power to win the election or of deep conflicts of interest, the optics of firing the man investigating you are exceptionally bad and it shouldn't have happened.

Trump has just made himself look even guiltier. So he's either guilty as sin, a complete fucking idiot, or a combination of the two.

Regarding Hillary Clinton email investigation and intent, watch the cross examination of Comey by Trey Gowdry here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1Mc6-RDyQ

The Republicans felt Comey did not do his job on this investigation for a couple of reasons, two big ones being:

1.   The statute Hillary was alleged to have violated makes no mention of intent, the bar is "gross negligence".   The republican position was that her intent did not matter, she violated the law through negligence.

2.  He recommended that she not be charged when (according to them) he should merely have passed his findings on.

Other random points on assorted comments made above:

The "deep state" is not conspiracist nonsense.   If you don't like the term, find another one.   Shadow government used to be popular a decade ago.    

The reason the Clinton emails keep being discussed is the same reason the Clinton foundation's ties to russia keep popping up.    People notice and are interested in hypocrisy.    To the disinterested or casual follower of politics these juxtapositions show that there is no principled objections coming from the DNC or DNC media to Trump's  actions that are based on ideals, principles, or rules that should apply to everyone.    And are therefore easy to dismiss as partisan lies/fake news.