The Nightmare Scenario: Trump Fires Comey, the One Man Who Would Stand Up to Him
The firing of James Comey as FBI director is a stunning event. It is a profoundly dangerous thinga move that puts the Trump-Russia investigation in immediate jeopardy and removes from the investigative hierarchy the one senior official whom President Trump did not appoint and one who is known to stand up to power. One of the biggest dangers of Comeys firing is that Trump might actually get away with it, ironically, because of Comeys unpopularity among Democrats and on the political left.
We warned about this danger immediately after the election.
On November 10, we wrote that that Trumps firing of Comey would be a a clear bellwether to both the national security and civil libertarian communities that things are going terribly wrong. At the time we wrote those words, Comey was deeply unpopular with both the Left, which blamed Hillary Clintons defeat on his eleventh hour letter to Congress, and the Right, which criticized his decision to recommend that Clinton not be charged over her handling of government emails. Whatever the merit of Comeys actions during the campaign, the fact that he managed to anger both sides of the political spectrum demonstrated his storied political independence. And that political independence, we argued, would serve as a critical check against any efforts on the part of President Trump to trample the rule of law.
...
The question before us now is whether Trump will get away with it. There is no question that the President has the legal authority to remove the FBI director. But theres also no question that removing the FBI Director in the midst of a high-stakes investigation of Russian influence in the inner circle of the Presidents campaign and White House is a horrifying breach of every expectation we have of the relationship between the White House and federal law enforcement.
https://lawfareblog.com/nightmare-scenario-trump-fires-comey-one-man-who-would-stand-him