President Trump Fires FBI Director

The President of the United States fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday evening. Sean Spicer, White House spokesperson, said the Department of Justice concluded that James Comey, the FBI director, mismanaged the investigation into allegations against Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State and Mr. Trump’s political rival.

On Tuesday evening, Spicer told reporters: “The President accepted the recommendation of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General and signed the order to dismiss the head of the intelligence agency.”

In a statement released by Mr. Trump, he recalled that Comey’s dismissal was based on the recommendation of James Sessions, the Attorney General, and Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General.

According to Spicer, Mr. Comey was informed of his dismissal order and his firing was carried out immediately.

Donald Trump, in his letter addressed to “James Comey,” wrote: “The FBI needs to find new leadership quickly so that public confidence in this principal agency responsible for enforcing the law can be restored.”

Comey’s Role in the Previous Presidential Election

According to previous reports, the FBI director, who was appointed by President Barack Obama for a ten-year term, intended to remain in his position until the end of his tenure.

Last week, Hillary Clinton said that one of the factors in her defeat was James Comey’s letter about her emails a few days before the election.

Three months before the election, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice announced that no crime had been found in Clinton’s email case, but only two weeks before the election, the FBI director suddenly announced that the agency would resume its investigation into Clinton’s emails.

The New York Times reported at the time that new emails related to Clinton’s case had been found on a computer belonging to Huma Abedin and her ex-husband, Anthony Weiner, and were now in the FBI’s possession.

Although some at the time interpreted the FBI’s action as weakening Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice announced that it would cooperate with the FBI to expedite the investigation into Clinton’s email case.

Only one day before the election, the FBI again announced that Clinton’s new emails showed no evidence of criminal activity.

Clinton’s Emails or Russian Investigations

The Washington Post reported that senior Department of Justice officials concluded that “Comey” had overlooked the fundamental issue of not bringing up pending investigation files regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email case.

At the same time, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a letter addressed to “Comey,” while thanking him for his service, stated that a change in FBI leadership is probably the best course of action ahead.

However, Democrats counter that the reason for Mr. Comey’s dismissal is new details about a possible relationship between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, which has so far led to Michael Flynn’s removal.

Ms. Clinton, who used a personal email instead of a government email for government work as Secretary of State, was under legal investigation months before the presidential election. Her private email, which was served from a computer in the basement of her residence in the Chappaqua neighborhood in New York State, did not have the necessary security for confidential government emails.

Last week, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, accused James Comey, the dismissed director of the Federal Intelligence Agency, of overlooking the “bad deeds” of Hillary Clinton, because he announced that Clinton had not committed a crime in her use of a personal computer for government emails.

Source: Voice of America