US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has made the shock decision to fire his FBI director James Comey, the man who leads the agency charged with investigating his campaign’s ties with Russia.
“The president has accepted the recommendation of the Attorney General and the deputy Attorney General regarding the dismissal of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.
A search for a new FBI director was to begin “immediately,” the White House said in a statement.
Last week, Comey said he felt “nauseous” at the thought he swayed last year’s US election by announcing he was reopening a probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before the vote.
Comey shocked the country when he informed Congress he was reopening the probe into Clinton’s unauthorised use of a private email server as secretary of state, months after declaring the probe found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
The about-face followed the discovery of missing Clinton emails with classified material on the laptop of a former congressman on October 27 last year, days before the 8 November election.
Comey said he was faced with two options: either conceal the investigation until after the vote, or inform Congress.
Congress was duly informed, and the news leaked out immediately on 28 October, casting a cloud over Clinton.
The FBI was sharply attacked as taking a political stance and Democrats continue to bristle over Comey’s actions.
In an interview last Tuesday, Clinton claimed that had been a major factor in her loss, saying: “If the election had been on 27 October, I’d be your president.”
But Comey said it was the right choice and he would do it again if he had to.
“I’ve lived my entire career by the tradition that if you can possibly avoid it, you avoid any action in the runup to an election that might have impact, whether it’s a dogcatcher election or president of the United States.”
“Even in hindsight – and this has been one of the world’s most painful experiences – I would make the same decision.”
Comey was repeatedly questioned by senators last Wednesday on why he spoke up on the Clinton emails investigation during the election but kept secret the FBI’s probe into Russian interference during the campaign.
Clinton said that Russian interference also damaged her campaign while boosting Trump’s.
Comey answered that it was a matter of timing – that the Clinton probe was only confirmed after it was underway for three months, while the Russia investigation was much younger at the time.
“With respect to the Russia investigation, we treated it like we did with the Clinton investigation. We didn’t say a word about it until months into it,” he said.
With reporting from AFP
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