By David French
Copyright smh
The stated justification for firing Comey was his alleged mishandling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for government business. The memorandum from Rod Rosenstein, then deputy attorney general, that recommended Comey’s termination outlined a series of complaints about Comey’s decisions, both to publicly discuss the results of the FBI’s investigation and to publicly announce the reopening of the investigation in October 2016 just days before the election.
For Trump, however, this justification was unquestionably a pretext. Days after Comey was fired, Trump told NBC News that he had intended to fire Comey “regardless” of the Department of Justice’s recommendation, and the reason was the Russia investigation. “When I decided to just do it,” he told NBC’s Lester Holt, “I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”
The Russia hoax is central to MAGA’s persecution narrative, and Trump has had a thirst for revenge ever since. He’s repeatedly attacked Comey in quotes, comments and interviews. He campaigned to be elected president last year promising retribution.
Now Trump is getting exactly what he wanted. The sequence of events is startling.
