From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:
I am not a defender of James Comey, who has just been fired from his position as FBI Director by Donald Trump. Personally, I think Comey should have resigned (or been fired) months ago.
Comey’s announcement just 10 days before the 2016 election that he was re-opening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails inferred that there was something nefarious regarding her e-mails — and definitely affected the election’s outcome. Of course, that turned out to be false (as he would have known if he had just done a perfunctory reading of those e-mails (which were from Huma Abedin — not Hillary Clinton).
That announcement showed that either Comes used his government position to intentionally affect the presidential election (which would be a violation of federal law), or he exhibited gross incompetence. Either way, he was not worthy of leading this nation’s top law enforcement agency.
Trump says he fired Comey because he was not doing a good job (i.e., was incompetent). But that was clearly evident several months ago. If that was the real reason, then Comes should have been fired in January or February.
Trump’s firing of Comes at this time, when the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russian officials during the 2016 campaign was picking up momentum, stinks to high heaven