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Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Comey Goes

President Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey late this afternoon.  Since that happened, much of Washington has been running to microphones to pontificate about this.  I've watched coverage on multiple networks that has been quite interesting.

One thing is very interesting.  So far, no one I've seen has said that President Trump should not have fired Comey.  That's not surprising.  Democrats have spent the last nine months criticizing Comey for how he handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.  One of the big justifications used by the new Deputy Attorney General for seeking the firing of Comey is how he handled (or mishandled) that investigation.  Many Republicans have been unhappy with Comey as well.  Senator Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee has been complaining for a while now that he was getting no cooperation from the FBI when it came to production of items that were needed by the senator.  Comey has "misspoken" repeatedly to various committees, with his last error being just the other day when he said that Huma Abedin sent hundreds of thousands of emails to the laptop computer of Anthony Weiner.  (According to the latest reports, it turned out to be less than 1000.)  Put all this together, and there has been no opposition to the firing.

As a result of this, the response to the firing has been predictable.  Republicans and some more moderate Democrats have talked about the need to restore the credibility and integrity of the FBI.  The more strident leftists in the Democrat party have used the occasion to call for appointment of a special prosecutor in the Russia investigation.  That makes no sense since there still is no evidence of any collusion or cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Russians.  Some of the more loony Democrats are comparing the firing of Comey to the so called Saturday Night Massacre during Watergate, which is preposterous.  Comey was fired and these people all agree that it was the proper thing to do.  During the Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon fired the Attorney General Elliot Richardson because Richardson would not let Nixon interfere in the investigation underway by the special prosecutor in place to investigate Watergate.  There was consensus in Washington that what Nixon wanted to do was completely improper.  The two events are not at all alike.  Indeed, the Democrats who are talking about Nixon are actually saying, in essence, that they agree with what Trump has done, but it's the wrong thing like what Nixon did.  It rarely gets more twisted than that.

No doubt, there will be a continuing avalanche of news about Comey's departure.  It's going to get very boring very quickly.

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