Trump fires head of FBI, which has been investigating his ties to Russia

FBI Director James Comey has been fired, according to the White House.

"Today, Fake President J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office," the White House statement reads.

"President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions," the statement continues.

Comey's termination was read to him over the phone while he was traveling for the bureau in Los Angeles, two FBI sources told ABC News. He was there for a field office inspection and a recruitment event this evening that's part of the FBI's efforts to boost diversity. A separate FBI official told ABC News that Comey first learned of his firing by seeing news reports on TV. The official said Comey was "surprised, really surprised" and was "caught flat-footed." It's unclear whether Comey will keep his speaking engagement in Los Angeles this evening, the official said.

FBI agents and staff are stunned by the news, FBI sources told ABC News. Inside the FBI, there are discussions about whether Comey will be able to address the bureau he led one final time, but it is not clear that will happen.

A separate FBI official said that because Comey has been terminated and is no longer an FBI employee, he may not be able to ride back to Washington, D.C., on the FBI jet.

In addition to a statement, the White House released the letter that Trump wrote directly to Comey dismissing him at the recommendation of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, "effective immediately."

"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau," Trump writes.

"It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Trump's letter states.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/fbi-director-james-comey-fired-215047657--abc-news-topstories.html

What if any Democratic president had done this? You just don't fire the head of an agency investigating you. Bad look for Trump. Sad!

As far as I know ,according to the BBC, he was fired for something to do with Hilary's E Mails. You didn't mention that.

Good point, nicko. Tell me what you know about that issue, would you?

Don't take much notice of American politics, just know that there was a big fuss about Hilary Clinton's Emails and you didn't mention it when it was part of the report.

nicko wrote:Don't take much notice of American politics,  just know that there was a big fuss about Hilary Clinton's Emails and you didn't mention it when it was part of the report.  

It wasn't part of the source article. Maybe you should grace us with your wisdom, though, on those fucking e-mails. Are they really worth Trump? Just for an example.

It just makes him look really guilty! Bit of an own-goal moment. What an idiot.

Don't be so fucking sarcastic, I posted what I heard on BBC THIS MORNING. I ONLY HEARD THE BIT ABOUT HILARY'S E,MAILS. I KNOW YOU HATE TRUMP, IT BLINDS YOUR MIND ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

[FUCKING CAPS STUCK AGAIN]

WASHINGTON — Days before he was fired, James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in money and personnel for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, according to three officials with knowledge of his request.

- The New York Times

The incident of Comey’s disclosure of the investigation into Clinton happened in July.  It was newsworthy in July 2016 because the election was pending.  However, the election is over.  It’s old news.  Moreover, Trump praised Comey for his handling of the matter in July.  Trump has been president now for some 110 days…why fire Comey now, particularly after Trump has praised Comey for his handling of the Clinton matter?  Clearly it’s a ruse to draw attention away from the real reason.

What is going on right now, of much greater great significance, is that just last week Comey testified before Congress about the investigation into Trump’s Russian connections and possible collusion of the Trump team with the Russian espionage.  Timing is crucial when it comes to motivation…you don’t dig up issues that happened nearly a year ago, for actions taken today.

I think it’s clear that Trump is trying to fire his own would-be prosecutor because the FBI Director was getting too close.  Don’t forget, the termination letter from Trump only mentioned the Russia investigation—“I greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation”—and failed to mention the Clinton fiasco.  Termination of an FBI Director has to be ‘for cause’ and the only cause the termination letter gives is this cryptic reference to the Russia-Trump investigation.

Add to all of the above, the common knowledge that Trump is the biggest liar in American politics.  We all know what's going on. Nuff said...

Washington (CNN)There are two reasons why Fake President Trump fired James Comey, according to a source close to the now-former FBI director:

Comey never provided the President with any assurance of personal loyalty.
The fact that the FBI's investigation into possible Trump team collusion with Russia in the 2016 election was accelerating.
The official White House version of what happened is that deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, fresh on the job, wrote a memo expressing concern about the way Comey had handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
But mounting evidence suggests Comey was actually fired because of the Russian investigation.
Rosenstein, in his memo, faulted Comey for being unfair to Clinton when he announced his conclusion last July that the case against Clinton should be closed without prosecution. He also criticized Comey for holding a press conference in which he "Release(d) derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation."

***

Moreover, the letter the President wrote to Comey firing him includes zero references to the Clinton investigation and one big one about the Russia investigation.
The White House does not seem to like any questions about this.
"You want to question the timing of when the President fires, when he hires. It's inappropriate," said Conway Wednesday. "He'll do it when he wants to, just like he fired FBI Director Comey when he was faced with evidence that was unignorable."
Except of course that evidence about how Comey had treated the Clinton investigation was quite ignorable for the President for more than three months after he took office or until he needed a reason to fire him.
One other point to be questioned has to do with the role of Sessions, who officially removed himself from the Russia investigation as it related to US political campaigns after it became clear he had not been forthcoming about his meetings during the presidential campaign with the Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Still, he cited his own ties to the Trump campaign as the reason for his recusal.
"I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States," Sessions said back in March.
Except that recusal oddly does not appear to have been in effect when Sessions forwarded the letter from his deputy, Rosenstein, to the President and separately called for Comey to be fired. And it is not in apparent effect now as we're told Sessions is leading the search Comey's replacement.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/politics/donald-trump-james-comey-russia/index.html

nicko wrote:I KNOW YOU HATE TRUMP

Yeah, stuff like this is why. If you can't tell this stinks, you don't have a functioning brain.

democrats were calling for his head some time back and once again trump has given them what they want and they dont like it.
I saw a report from someone who says he is the resistance, chortle, talking about this, and it turns out he was saying comey should be sacked some time ago.

what is clear from the way he handled the whole pre election investigation is he was quite useless.

personally I liked the donalds secret message in the letter he sent, anyone notice it.


top trolling donald
it's quite obvious

Something is very fishy here to me with this dismissal.

The Devil, You Know wrote:democrats were calling for his head some time back and once again trump has given them what they want and they dont like it.
I saw a report from someone who says he is the resistance, chortle, talking about this, and it turns out he was saying comey should be sacked some time ago.

what is clear from the way he handled the whole pre election investigation is he was quite useless.

personally I liked the donalds secret message in the letter he sent, anyone notice it.


top trolling donald
it's quite obvious

While it is true the Democrats were none too pleased with Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation (which he finally had to admit had no merit), that doesn’t in and of itself translate into a mandate to shut down the Russia investigation.  I think Trump realized that Comey was a driving force behind the Russia investigation, and he would not bend down and kiss Trump's ass.

It is clear that the proffered reasons for Comey’s firing was a pretext to rid Trump of this nagging cloud.  It was naïve of Trump to expect this wouldn’t bring more attention down on the matter, but he’s an amateur…and anyway, conservatives think people are that stupid.  Lol.  Comey had in the past week just asked for more money with which to conduct his investigation, and he had issued the first subpoenas of the investigation.  It was just getting too hot for the Russian-agent-president.

Just imagine if Trump were president on December 7th 1941.  He would be assuring the world that Pearl Harbor was still intact…and besides, we can’t be sure it wasn’t the Chinese or the Koreans who dropped the bombs (they all look alike).  Trump doesn’t seem to realize that the Russians engaged in an act of war upon the US and he aided them.  It’s unreal how blind he is; he doesn’t seem to understand that this will not simply go away…or maybe he’s just delusional, because he’s not a skilled politician.

The New director of the FBI

didn't bill clinton fire the fbi director the day before vince foster was murdered?

veya_victaous wrote:

I put very little trust in a traitor and russian spy

The Devil, You Know wrote:
I put very little trust in a traitor and russian spy

Are you talking about Donald Trump?  If so, we are in agreement.

The Devil, You Know wrote:didn't bill clinton fire the fbi director the day before vince foster was murdered?

Vince Foster was a deputy White House counsel who committed suicide on July 20, 1993.  He carried the reasons for his own death to his grave:

Wiki wrote:Foster's death was concluded to have been a suicide by inquiries and investigations conducted by the United States Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the United States Congress, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

The FBI "was requested by the United States Park Police (USPP), Washington, DC to assist them in their ... investigation" of the death of Vincent Foster. The FBI participated in the investigation by Independent Counsel Robert Fiske where, with Fiske's attorneys "agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) questioned 188 persons and reviewed and analyzed thousands of documents."

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr relied on "experienced investigators with extensive service in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)". Starr's final Report on the death of Vincent W. Foster consists of two volumes and is 137 pages. United States Congressional hearings did not investigate the circumstances of Foster's death but specifically confined its inquiry into whether the White House was guilty of "improper conduct" during the course of "the Park Service Police investigation into the death."

After a three-year investigation, Starr concluded that Foster's death was a suicide. CNN stated on February 28, 1997, "The Starr report refutes claims by conservative political organizations that Foster was the victim of a murder plot and coverup," but "despite those findings, right-wing political groups have continued to allege that there was more to the death and that the president and first lady Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to cover it up." The final report is The Report on the Death of Vincent W. Foster, Jr., by the Office of Independent Counsel in Re: Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association.

As with the assassination of President Kennedy, the search for Sasquatch, and the UFO crash landing in Roswell, NM, conspiracy theories persist about Foster.  They have the smell of a Republican post-hoc fiction, along the lines of Benghazi or Hillary’s emails.  There’s no there there.

The fired former FBI Director, Republican William Sessions, was let go after a scandal in which he was caught taking government funds and improving personal real estate with them.  It was typical of the (then) Republican practice to use the government coffers as a personal funding source. Today, they get caught.  Sessions was fired in a changing world, by which such practices were being exposed for the larceny that they were.   All of this occurred before Foster committed suicide, and thus could not have had anything to do with an investigation, which did not then exist.

However, Trump's collusion with the Russians took place in (and perhaps before) 2015-16, and the firing of James Comey took place just yesterday.  Comey was hot on the investigative trail of Trump's Russian espionage, and the cause and effect in Trump's firing of him is obvious.

Original Quill wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:
I put very little trust in a traitor and russian spy

Are you talking about Donald Trump?  If so, we are in agreement.

no I am referring to your fellow traveller snowden

Original Quill wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:didn't bill clinton fire the fbi director the day before vince foster was murdered?

Vince Foster was a deputy White House counsel who committed suicide on July 20, 1993.  He carried the reasons for his own death to his grave:

Wiki wrote:Foster's death was concluded to have been a suicide by inquiries and investigations conducted by the United States Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the United States Congress, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

The FBI "was requested by the United States Park Police (USPP), Washington, DC to assist them in their ... investigation" of the death of Vincent Foster. The FBI participated in the investigation by Independent Counsel Robert Fiske where, with Fiske's attorneys "agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) questioned 188 persons and reviewed and analyzed thousands of documents."

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr relied on "experienced investigators with extensive service in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)". Starr's final Report on the death of Vincent W. Foster consists of two volumes and is 137 pages. United States Congressional hearings did not investigate the circumstances of Foster's death but specifically confined its inquiry into whether the White House was guilty of "improper conduct" during the course of "the Park Service Police investigation into the death."

After a three-year investigation, Starr concluded that Foster's death was a suicide. CNN stated on February 28, 1997, "The Starr report refutes claims by conservative political organizations that Foster was the victim of a murder plot and coverup," but "despite those findings, right-wing political groups have continued to allege that there was more to the death and that the president and first lady Bill and Hillary Clinton tried to cover it up." The final report is The Report on the Death of Vincent W. Foster, Jr., by the Office of Independent Counsel in Re: Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association.

As with the assassination of President Kennedy, the search for Sasquatch, and the UFO crash landing in Roswell, NM, conspiracy theories persist about Foster.  They have the smell of a Republican post-hoc fiction, along the lines of Benghazi or Hillary’s emails.  There’s no there there.

The fired former FBI Director, Republican William Sessions, was let go after a scandal in which he was caught taking government funds and improving personal real estate with them.  It was typical of the (then) Republican practice to use the government coffers as a personal funding source. Today, they get caught.  Sessions was fired in a changing world, by which such practices were being exposed for the larceny that they were.   All of this occurred before Foster committed suicide, and thus could not have had anything to do with an investigation, which did not then exist.

However, Trump's collusion with the Russians took place in (and perhaps before) 2015-16, and the firing of James Comey took place just yesterday.  Comey was hot on the investigative trail of Trump's Russian espionage, and the cause and effect in Trump's firing of him is obvious.

but you dont deny that clinton sacked the fbi director the day before vince foster mysteriously died.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Vince Foster was a deputy White House counsel who committed suicide on July 20, 1993.  He carried the reasons for his own death to his grave:



As with the assassination of President Kennedy, the search for Sasquatch, and the UFO crash landing in Roswell, NM, conspiracy theories persist about Foster.  They have the smell of a Republican post-hoc fiction, along the lines of Benghazi or Hillary’s emails.  There’s no there there.

The fired former FBI Director, Republican William Sessions, was let go after a scandal in which he was caught taking government funds and improving personal real estate with them.  It was typical of the (then) Republican practice to use the government coffers as a personal funding source. Today, they get caught.  Sessions was fired in a changing world, by which such practices were being exposed for the larceny that they were.   All of this occurred before Foster committed suicide, and thus could not have had anything to do with an investigation, which did not then exist.

However, Trump's collusion with the Russians took place in (and perhaps before) 2015-16, and the firing of James Comey took place just yesterday.  Comey was hot on the investigative trail of Trump's Russian espionage, and the cause and effect in Trump's firing of him is obvious.

but you dont deny that clinton sacked the fbi director the day before vince foster mysteriously died.

Foster's suicide is a complete non sequitur in the matter of Session's termination, since his death came afterwards.  

The suicide took place in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, and was not even within the jurisdiction of the FBI.

but you dont deny that clinton sacked him a day before foster died mysteriously.

Thorin wrote:Something is very fishy here to me with this dismissal.

presidents sack officials, clinton sacked his FBI director, and didn't obama appoint comey,

The Devil, You Know wrote:but you dont deny that clinton sacked him a day before foster died mysteriously.

Don't know Dino. Have you got the dates?

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Thorin wrote:Something is very fishy here to me with this dismissal.

presidents sack officials, clinton sacked his FBI director, and didn't obama appoint comey,

Comey is a long-standing Republican. He was originally appointed by Obama, after a long tenure by Bob Mueller. The issue isn't who sacked whom, but why. Comey was terminated in the middle of an investigation into the espionage activities of Trump.

Original Quill wrote:

The Devil, You Know wrote:but you dont deny that clinton sacked him a day before foster died mysteriously.

Don't know Dino.  Have you got the dates?

yes apparently the day before vince foster mysteriously died.

The Devil, You Know wrote:but you dont deny that clinton sacked him a day before foster died mysteriously.

Foster didn't die mysteriously, he committed suicide -- that was the conclusion of something like six investigations, several of which were conducted by Clinton's political opponents.

Anyway, this thread isn't about Bill Clinton or anything that happened 25 years ago, so stop deflecting.

The Devil, You Know wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Don't know Dino.  Have you got the dates?

yes apparently the day before vince foster mysteriously died.

Yes, Ben is correct. Foster was a suicide.

But it still has nothing to do with the firing of Bill Sessions. Sessions was fired before Foster's suicide, so there's no connection.

Finally, in an interview today with Lester Holt, of NBC, Donald Trump has admitted that he fired Jim Comey because of the Russia investigation:

Lester Holt, NBC News wrote:The president reiterated his claim that he had been planning to fire Comey even before he received Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's recommendation to do so.

Rosenstein's letter is what raised the issue of the handling of the Clinton email investigation and the press conference given by Comey closing that investigation.  When asked why he had previously decided to terminate Comey, Trump went immediately to the Trump-Russian probe:


Watch and listen from 00:19 onward: Trump disavows the Rosenstein letter and rationale as being the reason for Comey's termination, and in particular, at 01:01 on to 01:15...he goes directly to his reasons, which involve the investigation into the Trump-Russian espionage, which he calls a "made up story".  "When I decided to do it [fire Comey] I said to myself, you know...this Russia [investigation] is a made-up story..."  

So he fired Comey because of the Trump-Russia investigation.  This is the answer we needed.  The Rosenstein letter was a ruse.  Trump had already made up his mind to fire Comey.  He states he fired Comey because he was investigating the Trump-Russia collusion. Would that anyone could fire the prosecutor who is investigating his crimes.

As an aside, do you wonder why lawyers tell their client's to keep their mouths shut?  Tut-tut, Donald.