More TPM - "Into the Abyss: Trump Fires Comey" (new post)

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/into-the-abyss-trump-fires-comey

By JOSH MARSHALL Published MAY 9, 2017 8:09 PM

Let me add a few more thoughts on the events of the evening.

There is a glorious swirl of irony, disingenuousness and bad faith in the vortex of opinions about James Comey and the notional rationale for firing him. Speaking just for myself, after Comey’s October 28th letter to Congress, I thought and think that by all rights he should have resigned. I think I wrote shortly after Trump’s election that by rights Comey should be fired but that it would be a national calamity if he was. An independent FBI Director was critical to the security of the nation as soon as a countdown started for Trump to become President of the United States.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote the memo articulating the argument for why James Comey should be fired. I was just speaking to one of my colleagues who said that in isolation, Rosenstein’s memo was not totally off base. Comey has made a number of big mistakes as FBI Director. (You can see the memo at the bottom of this article.) But that is really beside the point. As an argument in the abstract to justify why Comey could be fired, it’s an interesting argument. As an explanation of why Comey was in fact fired it is flatly ridiculous.

We heard earlier from CNN’s Jeff Zeleny that President Trump decided he wanted to fire Comey a week ago and then tasked Jeff Sessions with coming up with a rationale. But we don’t need Zeleny to tell us that. It’s obvious that this a rationale and not an explanation.

The idea that Trump fired Comey because he was unfair to Hillary Clinton or set aside DOJ guidelines in a way that was damaging to her is clearly not true. Indeed, it is so transparently nonsensical that putting it forward as a rationale suggests a certain presidential indifference to what anyone thinks.

snip

last line - "This is a very dark and perilous moment."

[flotsam]

1. President Trump decided he wanted to fire Comey a week ago

See-it has nothing at all to do with this weeks testimony no matter what any fake news source says!