Reporter we do know that something that President Trump had been considering, what were being told by Senior Administration officials the Deputy Attorney general was confirmed two weeks ago, he had time to look over james comeys turn your, and we have seen the letters which are essentially an indictment of the handling of Hillary Clintons emails. They said they no longer had faith in comeys ability to lead the department, they took this recommendation and he drafted this letter. But theres questions about the timing of this, why this is all happening now, its information that President Trump has celebrated in the past, but its serge not new information. The letter that the president sent to former fbi director comby. Can you explain what it cede said . Reporter i want to read you the portion that i think is
particularly confusing in President Trumps letter to comey, in this hes dismissing him. He said that while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i a
derogatory information. he also said that the dismiss e dismisschool of the fbi director needs to be done carefully. but we have to have a director who understands the gravity of mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. that is what happened. this has nothing to do with the campaign six months ago, this has everything to do with the performance of the director since donald trump has been in the white house. he is not the subject of an investigation and we appreciate the time and the platform tonight. and jeff sessions who has recused himself of anything to do with russia, why somebody accused himself with anything having to do with the russian investigation, fires
reporter: we do know that something that president trump had been considering, what we re being told by senior administration officials the deputy attorney general was confirmed two weeks ago, he had time to look over james comey s turn your, and we have seen the letters which are essentially an indictment of the handling of hillary clinton s emails. they said they no longer had faith in comey s ability to lead the department, they took this recommendation and he drafted this letter. but there s questions about the timing of this, why this is all happening now, it s information that president trump has celebrated in the past, but it s serge not new information. the letter that the president sent to former fbi director comby. can you explain what it cede said? reporter: i want to read you the portion that i think is
feinstein, who s on the full judiciary committee. it was just a few minutes before the news became public that they got that information. what i was told, that back at the white house, that s maybe not as shocking that the fbi found out that he was fired while watching television while he was speaking to the fbi, it give you a window into why that was allowed to happen. i was told by a source familiar with conversations inside the white house that they were surprised by the political explosion here. it s surprising that they were surprised, but they were. why? because they believed that the spin that is in this letter, and some of it, much of it is very you re talking about the letter the letter from rod rosenstein, detailing why they thought james comey did a bad job, mostly for the handling of the hillary clinton investigation, that would be
meeting with agents in a field office. and that s apparently how he found out. there were news reports that broke that he was being fired. it s unclear how he was directly given the information still, since the letter dismissing him was taken to the fbi here in washington and comey was in l.a. is it possible he saw it on news reports? reporter: it is certainly possible, again, not the best way to be fired. thank you. introducing our panel, jeff toobin, i got to start with you, is this normal? no, this is a dark day in american history, anderson. this is so far outside of the american political and legal tradition for a sitting president to fire the head of the fbi, who s investigating his campaign, with a completely