The word war between Trump and his fired FBI Director James Comey turns to extreme hot and Trump now rewrites history of firing him
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
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| Mr Trump singled out Mr Comey at a reception for law enforcement and security officials in the White House Blue Room during his second full day as President. |
VietPress USA (April 18, 2018): Eleven days before the US election in November, Mr Comey reopened an investigation in Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. A week later, he announced the new investigation had found no criminal activity.
However, Mrs Clinton holds Mr Comey to blame for her surprise defeat in the election. She said analysis of polling by her team showed Mr Comey's intervention was pivotal. She had led in almost every poll before Mr Comey announced he was reopening the investigation.
Donald Trump has praised the work of FBI chief James Comey - the man who Hillary Clinton blames for her election defeat. On the second day of Trump in office, Trump singled out Mr Comey at a reception for law enforcement and security officials in
the White House Blue Room. Trump gave FBI Director James Comey a hug then a firmly handshake and patted Comey on his back, joking: "He has become more famous than me."
Trump fired Comey on May 9. The White House issued a statement saying, “President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.”
Rosenstein wrote a two-and-a-half page memo with the subject line “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI” that stated the reasons why Comey should be removed. The memo cited Comey’s “handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary [Hillary] Clinton’s emails.” Rosenstein criticized Comey for holding a press conference on July 5, 2016, to publicly announce his recommendation not to charge Clinton, and for announcing on Oct. 28, 2016, that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Clinton.
Comey’s firing came less than two months after the director confirmed at a congressional hearing on March 20 that the bureau is investigating “whether there was any coordination between the [Trump] campaign and Russia’s efforts” to influence the 2016 presidential election.
In January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified intelligence report that found “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election” with the goal of hurting Clinton and helping to elect Trump.
Trump decided to fire Comey over the objections of his top advisers at the time, including chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Comey's firing, and Trump's subsequent suggestion that the Russia investigation was a factor in the decision, led Rosenstein to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the investigation. Mueller is now investigating the Comey firing as part of an investigation of potential obstruction by the president.
But today, AP reported that President Donald Trump rewrites his history of firing James Comey. Read this news from AP on Yahoo News at:
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Trump rewrites history on rationale for firing Comey
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump is attempting to rewrite history on his rationale for firing James Comey as FBI director last year.
In a Wednesday morning tweet sent as Comey promotes his criticism-filled new book, Trump says he "was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation." But in an interview days after the sudden firing, Trump revealed that the probe into potential collusion during the 2016 campaign was on his mind at the time he made the decision.
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The White House's initial explanation for Trump's decision was Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation, and it released a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein justifying the decision. But two days after firing Comey, Trump undercut that rationale.
In the interview with NBC on May 11, 2017, Trump said, "In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, 'You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.'"
Trump decided to fire Comey over the objections of his top advisers at the time, including chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Comey's firing, and Trump's subsequent suggestion that the Russia investigation was a factor in the decision, led Rosenstein to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the investigation. Mueller is now investigating the Comey firing as part of an investigation of potential obstruction by the president.
Appearing Wednesday on ABC's "The View," Comey said he doesn't know why Trump fired him. But he said the president's Wednesday tweet that Comey was not dismissed because of the "phony Russia investigation" illustrates a problem the former FBI director said he's been trying to highlight during his book-promotion tour.
"It matters that the president is not committed to the truth as a central American value," Comey said.
In an interview with ABC that aired Sunday, Comey said there is "certainly some evidence" that Trump had obstructed justice when Comey said the president pushed him to take a lenient stance toward former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
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