Draining the Swamp: Trump Fires Incompetent FBI Director
As you’ve probably heard by now, President Trump took the bold step of firing FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday after being strongly encouraged to do so by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. While the Democrats, the media, and even a handful of smarmy Republicans are casting this as some kind of “Nixonian” power play on the part of the president, there are several things that sober-minded Americans should remember.
First, let’s face it, James Comey was not exactly a stellar example of how an FBI director should behave. Generally speaking, the nation’s top law enforcement official should be all but invisible to the press. Transparency is all well and good, but Comey managed to be both opaque in his motivations and constantly in the spotlight. Every major decision he made about the Hillary Clinton investigation was either blasted by Republicans, Democrats, or both. No one deserves the blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss other than Hillary Clinton herself, but few can reasonably argue that Comey handled the investigation with grace.
Second, the timing couldn’t have been better. That doesn’t mean the timing was “good,” as the negative headlines have proven. But it was as good as it was going to get. If Trump had fired Comey immediately upon taking office, it would have been seen as a sort of validation of the left’s story of the election – that there was, in fact, something to the whole Russian collusion thing after all. As you’ve seen from the media reports, Trump couldn’t escape those accusations, even after waiting more than 100 days. But at some point, there comes a choice: Make the tough call and accept the inevitable backlash…or keep a terrible FBI director in place just because you’re afraid of some bad publicity. Trump made the right call at the right time.
Finally, Democrats are embarrassing themselves by denouncing Comey’s firing. For months, they’ve been raking the FBI director over the coals for that letter he sent to Congress last October. Several prominent Democrats have at least come right up to the line of demanding his resignation, and more than a few liberal columnists have crossed that line. Today, they’re suddenly acting as though none of that ever happened – or if it did, it was really no big deal.
Once again, President Trump has exposed the hypocrisy of the left.