May 10, 2017 President Donald Trump and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak/Russian Embassy photo
President Trump's extraordinary move firing FBI Director James Comey in the midst of an investigation into potential Russian involvement with Trump aides and the 2016 election has ramifications that are only beginning to unfold. Comey is the second FBI Director to ever be fired. Trump’s action has potentially set up his own downfall.
As timelines continue to unfold, it's becoming clear that Trump apparently made the decision to fire the FBI Director after learning of Comey's request for increased resources to continue the Russia investigation. President Trump was aware Federal prosecutors had recently issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
It’s a swirl of presidential firings and investigations that repeatedly focus on Russia. Trump is doing whatever he can to shut them down.
On Monday the president, along with the rest of the country, watched the testimony of two additional people he's fired, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. They appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee not only providing details about Flynn, but revealing the intelligence community was looking into Trump's business ties to Russia.
The plausibility of President Trump's continued denials of Russian involvement in the election or his business dealings has become increasingly difficult to believe. The man doth protest too much. He went so far as to allude to his innocence in the second paragraph of his curtly worded termination letter sent to James Comey:
"May 9, 2017
Dear Director Comey,
I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.
While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.
It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors,
Donald J. Trump"
President Trump has let his paranoid insecurity show to the world in a historically important action. It is something we have witnessed before in a president, and it did not turn out well.
President Richard Nixon's well documented paranoia took over during the Watergate investigation even though the actual Watergate events did not involve the firing of then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The three times Trump's letter states his thanks to Comey for letting him know that he's not under investigation is as close as you can come to Nixon's now infamous words that preceded his downfall.
On November 18, 1973, President Nixon held a news conference defending his record in the Watergate case, and stating he had never profited from his years in public service.
“I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice.”
“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”
Reading The Washington Post reporting of that event now becomes slightly eerie:
“Mr. Nixon was tense and sometimes misspoke. But he maintained his innocence in the Watergate case and promised to supply more details on his personal finances and more evidence from tapes and presidential documents.”
Summing up, he declared that the White House tape recordings would prove that he had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in, that he never offered executive clemency for the Watergate burglars, and in fact turned it down when it was suggested, and had no knowledge until March 21, 1973, of proposals that blackmail money be paid a convicted Watergate conspirator."
Nixon resigned from office on August 8th, 1974.
President Trump’s judgement is becoming clouded. The morning after firing former FBI Director Comey, he began his day meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, who has been a focal point in the Russian investigation. The only way we found out about the strange meeting was through pictures taken by Russia’s state news agency and put on Twitter. No American journalists were allowed in.
And if that wasn't enough mingling with the wrong people at the wrong time, the president held another White House meeting shortly after with Richard Nixon's former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. All within a matter of hours. The photo op of President Trump sitting next to Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office with investigations focusing on yet another White House feeds the worst fears of a presidency in danger.