President Trump has fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a statement, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said James Comey has been “terminated and removed from office.” Spicer also stated that both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein, recommended Comey’s ouster based on the director’s handling of the investigation around Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
“The FBI is one of our Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” Trump said in the issued statement. The White House also says the search for a new permanent director “will begin immediately.”
In a letter to Comey, Trump wrote, “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.”
Rosenstein, the deputy AG, detailed the reasons for Comey’s firing in a memo to Sessions. “I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken,” Rosenstein writes in the memo. “The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement.” The attorney general at the time was Loretta Lynch, appointed by President Obama.
Rosenstein is referring to Comey’s public remarks in July at the FBI’s headquarters in Washington in which he stated he would not be recommending Clinton, then in the midst of her presidential campaign, be prosecuted:
Comey had been appointed director of the FBI by President Obama in 2013 for a single 10-year term, but the FBI director serves at the pleasure of the president. Trump’s replacement requires Senate confirmation.
