Trump Fires FBI Director Comey: Claims he is not under FBI investigation

Democrats see a “Russiagate”: US Presidency under a Cloud

US President Donald Trumpsays he is not under investigation, even as acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe on Thursday, May 11, told Congress the Russian probe is “highly significant” and will continue, media reports said. Trump told NBC News it was his decision alone to sack Comey, who was leading an inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US election and possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Moscow.

Trump has dismissed the probe as a “charade”, a claim directly contradicted by Comey’s successor, the BBC said in its report. In his first interview since firing the FBI Director, Trump told NBC News on Thursday he had asked Comey whether he was under investigation.”I said, if it’s possible would you let me know, ‘Am I under investigation?’ He said: ‘You are not under investigation.'” “I know I’m not under investigation,” Trump told the interviewer, repeating a claim he made in his Tuesday’s letter of dismissal to Comey.

The President also appeared to undercut the initial White House explanation that he fired Comey on the recommendation of top justice officials, the BBC reported. “He’s (Comey) a showboat. He’s a grandstander. The FBI has been in turmoil. I was going to fire Comey. My decision,” Trump said. “I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.” “There’s no collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians,” Trump added. Trump, who tweeted a few days back that the Russia-Trump collusion allegations were a “total hoax”, on Thursday denied he wanted the FBI inquiry dropped. The White House has depicted the Russia inquiry as “probably one of the smallest things” that the FBI has “got going on their plate”.

But acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said on Thursday that it was “a highly significant investigation”. In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, McCabe also cast doubt on White House claims that Comey had lost the confidence of his staff. McCabe said he believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation had sufficient funding to conduct the probe. The anger behind Donald Trump‘s firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday had been building for months, but a turning point came when Comey refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel, White House officials said.

Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a May 3 hearing about his  handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server. When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts to Trump’s decision this week to fire the FBI director, the officials said. “It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties,” one official said. Previews of congressional testimony to superiors are generally considered courteous.

Comey, who testified for four hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it made him feel “mildly nauseous” that his decision to make public his reopening of a probe into Clinton’s handling of classified information might have affected the outcome of the November 8 presidential election. But he said he had no regrets and would make the same decision again. Trump’s sudden firing of Comey shocked Washington and plunged Trump deeper into a controversy over his campaign’s alleged ties with Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency.

Democrats accused the Republican President of firing Comey to try to undermine the FBI’s probe into Russia’s alleged efforts to meddle in the 2016 election and possible collusion with members of the Trump campaign, and demanded an independent investigation. Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans called his dismissal of Comey troubling. The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Comey was fired because of his handling of the Clinton email probe. Before he axed Comey, Trump had publicly expressed frustration with the FBI and congressional probes into the Russia matter. Moscow has denied meddling in the election and the Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia.

A former Trump adviser said Trump was also angry because Comey had never offered a public exoneration of Trump in the FBI probe into contacts between the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, and Trump campaign advisers last year. According to this former adviser, Comey’s Senate testimony on the Clinton emails likely reinforced in Trump’s mind that “Comey was against him.” “He regretted what he did to Hillary but not what he did to Trump,” the former Trump adviser said of Comey. Clinton has said the Comey decision to announce the renewed inquiry days before the election was a likely factor in her loss to Trump.

Aides said Trump moved quickly after receiving a recommendation on Monday to terminate Comey from Rosenstein, who began reviewing the situation at the FBI shortly after taking office two weeks ago. Trump’s move was so sudden that his White House staff, accustomed to his impromptu style, was caught off guard. Stunned aides scrambled to put together a plan to explain what happened. White House spokesman Sean Spicer ended up briefing reporters about the move in the dark on Tuesday night near a patch of bushes steps away from the West Wing. – Reuters

‘I have come to terms with my sacking’

FBI chief James Comey on Thursday told his colleagues that the US President had the right to sack him for any reason “or for no reason at all” and that he had come to terms with it In a farewell letter to his colleagues, Comey said he does not plan to dwell on the decision of the President to fire him or the “way it was executed.” “It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply,” Comey said a day after he was unceremoniously removed as top sleuth. Comey was in the third year of his 10-year term, when he was dismissed. (Source IANS/ NBC)