My Thoughts by Tom Del Beccaro: Comey’s Firing
Here are my thoughts on the firing of FBI Director Comey, the timing and an Independent Counsel.
1. He earned it.
Law enforcement officials are not supposed to be political. He was. They are supposed to gather evidence and hand it off. They are not supposed to announce their findings and then declare to the world whether someone should be indicted.
a) What Comey did last July to Hillary was shocking. I remember watching in amazement that he went through the evidence, declared her bad acts (which arguably were criminal) and then pronounced she should not be indicted. He should have been fired for that.
Never in our history has an FBI directed taken such center political stage. Yes, Loretta Lynch said she would abide by his decision – and she was dead wrong to do that. Even so – he should have privately handed it off to the Justice Department – not take the spotlight.
b) I was even more shocked when in October he announced the FBI was reopening the inquiry. I thought to myself – he damn well better have the goods on Hillary to announce something like that so late in the election. As we know, he decided he didn’t. Stunning. He should have been fired for that.
c) Since then he has repeatedly delved into the political instead of keeping in his lane.
d) Obama should have fired him – but Obama never made a hard decision in his presidency. He delayed and put things off.
e) Trump makes decisions – regardless of the politics it appears. Good or bad. The recommendation came down to fire him and Trump does what he does. He acted.
f) Both sides lost confidence in him – regardless of that they are saying now like that phony Sen. Schumer. Comey had no friends in DC anymore.
2. The Timing.
a) Why now? What, should he have just been allowed to stay and do more damage to the office and be more political?
b) But he just asked for more resources to look at Trump! If you are likely to believe that was the reason for his firing, you should be just as likely to believe that he knew they were weighing whether to keep him and he made that ask to prevent his own firing.
c) There is never a good time to fire an FBI Director nor the Fed Chairman nor the Attorney General. It will always be suspicious.
d) Why didn’t Trump do it right away? Because you start a presidency with your agenda as best you can – you don’t start with controversy. The first 100 days should be positive. So, it was not feasible to do it earlier. Beyond that, healthcare should have been a higher priority and it was. There is actually lull right now. Now was a good time.
e) Also, Trump and Session commissioned an opinion on what to do with him. They got it this week. “Your fired.”
3. Independent Counsel.
You don’t appoint an Independent Counsel unless (a) you have clear evidence of a crime and (b) it implicates those potentially in charge of the investigation or so high up in the Department of Justice or the Administration that the FBI cannot act independently.
Neither of those are evident in this case. Indeed, Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein says there is no evidence of collusion. Will they find an identifiable crime? I don’t know and neither do you or the contemptible Congressmen and Senators talking about it.
They should shut up and do their day job – you know, healthcare and taxes. No, instead they are bloviating about what is important and scandalous.
In the final analysis, Comey had to go. Trump acted. Instead of talking about it, Congress should act on its business and let the FBI do its job without a politician at its head.
