It was an astonishing, unprecedented week. Trump fired FBI director Comey, initially stating he did so because of the way Comey had treated Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign. That was literally incredible, as this was from a man who encouraged chants of “Lock her up!” during his campaign rallies. By chance, Comey just happened to have been conducting an investigation into connections between Trump and the Russian interference in the election. In fact, Comey had just asked for additional money and personnel for the investigation.
Trump hid his plan to fire Comey from most of his advisors, apparently because he felt he could not trust them not to leak it. The way it happened was abusive, as Trump often is. Comey was speaking in San Diego before a group of FBI agents. A television screen behind Comey flashed the news that he had been fired. Comey initially thought it was a prank– until his aids pulled him into a private office and told him it was true. Comey was highly respected within the FBI. His firing and the method of his firing have surely angered many, many FBI agents. We can expect even more leaks and even greater effort being put into the FBI investigation.
Trump and those of his team who knew about the plan to fire Comey apparently truly believed that the Democrats would not protest. They thought this because many of them (including myself) blame Comey’s statement 10 days before the election for tilting the election in Trump’s favor. That statement was that the FBI was investigating reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton maintaining a private email server while she was Secretary of State. Immediately before the election Comey announced that nothing additional had been found, but the damage was done. Trump lost the popular vote by 3,000,000 votes; if just 70,000 votes had gone to Hillary rather than Trump in the right states she would have won the electoral college as well. (What a quaint “violation” maintaining a private email -- as her predecessor Secretaries of State, notably Colin Powell, had done – seems now given Trump’s behavior as President.)
Comey was, of course, wrong to release that statement 10 days before the election. It is long-standing policy with government law-enforcement agencies to never take action immediately before an election that might affect the election. They either take action long in advance or wait until after the election is over. I believe Comey acted as he did because all the polls showed Hillary far in the lead. He believed (as did most of us) that Hillary would win easily and by doing this he could prove to Republicans that he was evenhanded. After all, the FBI has to operate on money provided by Congress and even prior to the election it seemed clear that the Republicans would maintain their majority in the House of Representatives, where all bills involving money must originate per the Constitution.
The Democrats didn’t condone Comey’s election behavior, but they (and some Republicans) were furious that Trump removed Comey, whose agency was leading a well-publicized investigation into the Trump election campaign. Astonishingly, Trump and his advisors were shocked by the Democrats’ response. It confirms just how out of touch with reality they are.
But there was more, as there always is with Trump. The number two at the Department of Justice is Rod Rosenstein. Jeff Sessions is the head of the Department, who has recused himself from the Trump investigation (Sessions was part of Trump’s campaign team) -- although by his behavior this week it seems Sessions hasn’t really recused himself at all. Trump said that Rosenstein had written a memo that Trump relied on stating that Comey should be fired because of what he did regarding Hillary Clinton in the campaign. Rosenstein immediately protested that while he had criticized Comey’s actions he did not recommend firing Comey and doing so was Trump’s idea. Still, he did prepare that memo and Trump used it. At the very least Rosenstein got played by Trump. As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo said, Trump is a black hole that inexorably pulls people in and then destroys them.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the chief Republican in the Senate, said that he saw no need for a special prosecutor or a special House/Senate bipartisan investigative committee. While the committee investigating the 911 attack had 41 full-time staffers working on it, the current Senate committee investing the Trump/Russia connections has only seven – and they are all part time.
Then, when it seemed matters could not become crazier, Trump had an interview with Lester Holt. In that interview Trump said that he had made the decision to fire Comey and strongly implied that he did it to stop the FBI’s investigation.
What happens next is not clear. With Nixon it took about 18 months from when the Watergate Apartment break-in into the Democratic National Headquarters before Nixon was removed from office. Unfortunately, the only person who can appoint a special prosecutor is the aforementioned Rod Rosenstein– and it’s not clear whether his loyalties lie with the country, himself or Trump. In any case, though Trump hoped that firing Comey would impede the various investigations, it surely will have the opposite effect.