RAGE, FRUSTRATION, MISCALCULATION LED TO COMEY’S SACKING

Todd Beeton | May 10, 2017 |

Late afternoon on Tuesday, the news came out of Washington that Donald Trump had unceremoniously fired FBI Director James Comey. Comey himself was in the Los Angeles FBI field office at the time and discovered the news as many of us did: on television.

Comey’s firing was a culmination of Trump’s deep frustration at the persistence of the Russia story. According to Politico, Trump reportedly was extremely frustrated that Comey had confirmed the FBI was investigating him and his associates, and that further Comey would not confirm Trump’s claim that President Obama had wiretapped him. Even so, many in the White House appeared just as surprised as Comey at the news of his firing. “Nobody really knew,” one senior White House official said. “Our phones all buzzed and people said, What?”

Comey’s firing also came the same day as it was publicly revealed that federal prosecutors, working with one or more grand juries, issued subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn, seeking business records as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. According to CNN, this marks “the first sign of a significant escalation of activity in the FBI’s broader investigation begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.” This is seen as a blow to Trump, who had hoped dismissal of Comey might put a crimp in public inquiry into possible collusion between his campaign and the Russians during the election.

Trump reportedly considered his firing of Comey as a win-win, something both sides of the political aisle could get behind. That would prove to be a major miscalculation. Calls to Senators prior to the news breaking resulted in little support, and the White House appeared unprepared to react and respond to the firestorm that would result from the announcement. Sean Spicer reportedly was scrambling for three hours to react to the news. It wasn’t until Snator Schumer publicly called for a special prosecutor Tuesday evening that the White House seemed to devise a press strategy and deployed communications staff to defend the President’s move.

Deputy Communications Director Sarah Huckabee Sanders went on Fox News to declare that it’s “time to move on” and that “there’s no there there” even as the announcement seemed to throw gasoline on the flames of the investigation. The firing appeared to solidify Democrats’ resolve in calling for a special prosecutor into the Russia investigation, with Republicansnow joining the chorus. The common refrain coming from analysts was that the move was “Nixonian,” even prompting the Nixon Library to clarify that not even Nixon had fired his own FBI Director.

Source
http://secondnexus.com/politics-and-economics/rage-frustration-comeys-sacking/?utm_content=inf_10_1164_2&tse_id=INF_76b594a0358a11e78b099bd9c6581d40