Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey Mid-Russia Investigation, Admits On National Television Within 48 Hours That Russia Investigation Was The Reason

The Filing

WASHINGTON. President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday dismissed FBI Director James Comey, dispatching a presidential bodyguard to deliver a termination letter to FBI headquarters while Comey was addressing employees at the bureau's Los Angeles field office, the White House announced. Comey learned of his removal from a television playing in the background of the room.

The official rationale, attached to the firing letter, was a memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein expressing concern about Comey's handling of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. The President, who had spent the entirety of 2016 leading crowds in chants of "Lock Her Up," explained that he had been deeply troubled by Comey's treatment of Mrs. Clinton, whom the President had until that morning identified as the principal beneficiary of Comey's restraint.

Within 48 hours, the President offered an alternative explanation. In an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, he stated that when he decided to fire the FBI director, he was thinking about "this Russia thing with Trump and Russia," and that the dismissal would have occurred regardless of any DOJ memorandum. Officials briefed on the discussion characterized the on-camera admission as a clarification of the written rationale.

The President welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to the Oval Office the following day. According to notes obtained by reporters, the President informed his guests that he had just fired "the head of the FBI," described Comey as "crazy, a real nut job," and noted that the firing had relieved "great pressure" he was facing "because of Russia." Photographers from the Russian state news agency TASS were granted access; American press were not.

Sources within the administration cautioned that the President's televised admission, his Oval Office briefing to a foreign adversary, and the original DOJ rationale should be considered complementary rather than contradictory. The decision to remove Comey was described internally as the resolution of a long-standing concern that the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation continued to investigate the President of the United States.

At press time, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was reportedly eight days away from appointing a former FBI Director as special counsel to take over the investigation the President's dismissal had been designed to relieve.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who removed the official leading the federal investigation into his campaign's contacts with Russia, briefly relieving the pressure he subsequently identified to Russian officials as central.
§The Russian Federation, which received from the President of the United States, in the Oval Office, an explicit confirmation that the FBI investigation into Russian election interference had been a source of "great pressure" now reduced.
§Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, granted private Oval Office access and a candid presidential briefing on the status of the counterintelligence investigation in which they were of acute professional interest.
§Michael Flynn and other Trump associates then under FBI scrutiny, whose oversight was abruptly disrupted at the top.
§Rod Rosenstein, momentarily elevated as the public face of the official rationale before being publicly contradicted by the President on national television.
§Sean Hannity and the conservative media apparatus, handed a multi-week project of explaining why a Republican president firing the man who arguably handed him the 2016 election was an act of mercy toward Hillary Clinton.
§TASS, granted privileged Oval Office access while American press were excluded.
§Future authors of presidential memoirs, impeachment articles, and constitutional law textbooks, gifted source material of unimprovable density.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment