The Trump White House sent out an official timeline of the Comey firing Wednesday evening, to clarify the timeline of the President’s decision. However, the timeline left out the moment that now fired FBI Director James Comey asked for more resources for his accelerated Russia Trump investigation.
PoliticusUSA was sent an official timeline of events that led to President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey via the White House pool. It was sent at the request of the White House to clarify the timing, but it raises more questions than it answers.
The timeline says President Trump lost confidence in Comey, was inclined to remove him last Wednesday after watching his testimony, then met with his AG and Deputy AG and they discussed reasons for firing Comey. Both men provided written recommendations to the president the next day, May 9th.
Nowhere in this timeline is the request from the Director for more resources for the Trump investigation.
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Coincidentally, Comey reportedly asked for more resources for the Trump Russia investigation last week. A source close to the now-former FBI director told CNN that there are two reasons Comey was fired:
1). Comey never provided the President with any assurance of personal loyalty.
2). The fact that the FBI’s investigation into possible Trump team collusion with Russia in the 2016 election was accelerating.
It’s possible that CNN’s source got it wrong. But it’s hard to buy that Trump suddenly got disturbed by Comey’s treatment of Clinton’s emails, when what was hanging over Trump’s head was Comey’s investigation into Trump’s possible collusion with Russia.
However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s letter cited Comey’s July handling of Clinton’s emails, and his inappropriate announcement of “new emails” to review just days before the election. So that didn’t wash, because Trump blew a kiss to Comey in public on January 22, long after the Clinton email debacle but also because Trump has not, since he began running for office, stood up for a value or principle that didn’t benefit him directly and then turn around and take the opposite position when the former no longer helped him.
The problem for the White House is Trump’s firing raises the spectre that he might have acted deliberately in order to obstruct justice. In fact, it’s hard to get around this elephant in the room. Trump would have been better off letting Comey do his thing. This is that moment when the old adage “it’s the cover up” comes into play.
The President met behind closed doors this afternoon with acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, but no readout of the meeting was provided to the white House pooler.
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