President Barack Obama is planning to fire FBI Director James Comey after Tuesday’s presidential election, according to a report in The Daily Mail by an author who has covered the Clintons since 2005.
Writer Ed Klein, who recently published Guilty as Sin about Bill and Hillary Clinton, wrote Monday that Obama has given in to demands from senior adviser Valerie Jarrett that Comey, who was appointed by Obama, must go.
Reports say Jarrett has been pushing Obama to fire Comey as of last week.
.@Judgenap: ‘Comey knows his days are numbered’ no matter who wins https://t.co/OxTZAt5a9z
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 7, 2016
However, there is also another rumored scenario in which Comey leaves before the ax falls due to internal unrest in the FBI that would only be quelled by Comey stepping down.
“I met with friends from the FBI and Justice and they were all in agreement that Comey’s jerky decisions—opening the case against Hillary without definite cause, then closing it without consulting with his top deputies—was flabbergasting and deeply disturbing for career law enforcement and prosecutors,” Klein quoted an unnamed retired Justice Department official as saying.
“Whatever support and goodwill Jim had until recently has been destroyed,” Klein quoted the source as adding. “He has injured the bureau and it will take a miracle for him to survive this.”
In calling for Comey to be fired, Kurt Eichenwald wrote for Newsweek about the damage the director did to the FBI.
“A huge swath of the public now thinks the FBI is a completely political organization: A large number of Democrats, because of the original letter followed by a week’s worth of leaks from other agents about other investigations, are convinced that the bureau is manipulating the election for the Republicans and cannot be trusted,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, plenty of Republicans are arguing that Comey’s newest findings can’t possibly be true and that he caved to pressure from the Democrats. In other words, no matter what side of the political spectrum anyone is on, they agree that the FBI is political.”
