incredibly bad and messy story for them. i mean, just the damage control alone is what the american people are hearing. and it doesn t inspire a lot of confidence in the staff there. when you have, again, to reitera reiterate. when you have the president saying that he called comey a showboat and a grandstander, from the nbc interview, and said he wanted him out because the fbi was in turmoil, which is in direct contradiction to what the now acting director of the fbi mr. mccabe said today in testimony. who wanted to jump in? i wanted to say, i wanted to make clear, when you re talking about obstruction charges and different stories and narrative that are coming out of the white house and the staff, we talk about lines and we talk about obstruction of justice. in order for that to actually be the case, remember, the more plausible, benign reasons and motivations you may have to do a firing of an otherwise active employee actually can undermine a prosecutor s case in a
look, he s a showboat, he s a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil. you know that, i know that, everybody knows that. you take a look at the fbi a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil. less than a year ago. it hasn t recovered from that. monday, you met with the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein. right. did you ask for a recommendation? what i did is, i was going to fire comey. my decision you had made the decision before they came in. i was going to fire comey. there s no good time to do it, by the way. they because in your letter, you said, i accepted their recommendation. well, they had you already made the decision? i was going to fire regardless of he made a recommendation, he s highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy. the democrats like him, the republicans like him. he made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. let me ask you about your termination letter to mr. comey.
fired the fbi director with more than six years left on his term because he was a showboat, a kbra grandstander. how important is it that the next person for this job show loyalty to the president? i think the main factor they re looking for is they re loyal to the justice system, loyal to the american people. this president is looking for someone who can come in, who is independent and has the support, i think, across the board, whether it s republicans, democrats, members of the fbi and certainly the american people. again, it wasn t just one thing that caused the president to make this decision. a large part of why he made this decision was because he didn t feel like director comey was up to the job. he had watched, it was just an erosion of confidence that he had in his ability to carry out the tasks that needed to be done. 33 he s looking for someone who
welcome back. you re watching cnn, breaking news. president trump says he plans to fire fbi director james comey, no matter what, irrespective of anyone s recommendation. this is what he has just told nbc today. the president called comey a grandstander, quote, and a showboat, quote. just a short time ago, the republican chairman of the senate intelligence committee reacted to those words from the president. the president just told lester holt that he was going to fire director comey, whether or not he had that recommendation or not, and he called director comey a showboat. he called him that grandstander. do you agree with that assessment? we just heard something different from these i m not beginning to speak
in director comey. after watching director comey s testimony last wednesday, the president was strongly inclined to remove him. on monday, the president met with the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, and they discussed reasons for removing the director. the next day, tuesday, may 9th, the deputy attorney general sent his written recommendation to the attorney general and the attorney general sent his written recommendation to the president. hopefully that clears up some of those things. and with that, i will take your questions. steve holland? sarah, why did the lester holt interview the president just had, why did the president think that james comey was a sh showboat and a grandstander? i think probably based on the numerous appearances that he made and i think that it s probably pretty evident in his behavior over the last year or so with the back and forth and