Why Did Trump Fire Comey?

President Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, May 10, raises one hugely important question: Did the president dump Comey for mishandling the investigation of Hillary Clinton‘s email, as Trump and his team have said? Or was that simply a pretense to fire an independent-minded director who was investigating ties between Trump’s campaign and the Russians? On the one hand, there’s a strong case that Comey mishandled the Clinton email investigation. In July 2016, Comey publicly scolded the former secretary of state even as he said there were no grounds for criminal charges against her. He sent a letter to Congress on the eve of the presidential election announcing that the investigation had effectively been reopened against the. advice of Department of Justice officials, at a time when it may have affected the election results. And then last week, at a congressional hearing, Comey inaccurately described part of that email investigation. Democrats have been attacking Comey for months. Trump now says he disapproves of Comey for the same reasons Clinton has. But the case for skepticism about the Trump administration‘s proffered motives for this move are strong, too. First, Comey’s alleged sins, according to the Trump administration, happened months ago, particularly holding the press conference in which he listed Clinton’s mistakes but did not charge her. If Trump disapproved of them so strongly, he could have dismissed theFBI director much sooner.

Second, Comey and his department have been investigating ties between the Russian government and the Trump camp for months. The investigation seems serious. Trump has now fired a man who was a major potential threat to his presidency.

So, the cynical view of Tuesday’s move is that the news of Comey’s latest blunder and Democrats’ constant attacks on the FBI director made it easy for Trump to both fire Comey and potentially blunt criticism of the move as politically motivated. How could Democrats criticize the firing of a man who they have been complaining about for months?

Pretty easily, it turns out. The early reaction from Democrats suggests that whatever concerns they had about Comey are outweighed by worries about Trump. Bob Casey, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, called Trump’s move “Nixonian.” Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer said, “If we don’t get a special prosecutor, every American will rightfully suspect that the decision to fire #Comey was part of a cover-up,” in a Twitter message.