is trying to focus on and that frankly i think is what the resy of the country is ready for the media start focusing on as well. tucker: catherineat herridge just reported that this has been under consideration for at least a couple of weeks since the end of april. so there s clearly been time to think through who will replace director comey? what s the time frame for replacing such a significant job? not to step on anything at this point, and the presidentt wants to make sure that he gets the right person in that position coming was to make sure that whoever it is has the respect of the rank and the fbi and frankly that is somebody who s not political. i think we have to find somebody who can restore credibility back to this department, that certainly wasn t director comey. it s one of the reasons that he can no longer serve in that role and i think that he ll be looking for somebody who can step in and frankly i think bring credibility back to the fbi that has struggled with o
i have been very vocal in my criticism of james comey. tucker: so he shouldn t be running the fbi, but you re mad he s not running the fbi. this is nothing to do with whether james comey is good orni not good for the fbi or not. this is about the timing. if the white house was sincere tucker: you wish they fired him at some other time. i wish that we d have taken action, another appropriate actions at the time. tucker: we had a ton of segments about the russian conspiracy and vladimir putin having dinner with ivanka or whatever that conspiracy suggests but tonight, the president of the united states just canned the fbi director and people are wondering if this is good or bad. they re confused, they re legitimately confused. so i m just trying to get the perspective of a former dnc spokesman when i ask you, do you think jim comey should still be
don t forget, he has now inherited the responsibility of being acting attorney generall for purposes of the so-called russia investigation.es and if he lost confidence in the director of the fbi to be in charge of that investigation and the agency doing thathe investigation and lost confidence in the director s ability to convey public confidence in the course and progress of that investigation, than i think he had no choice to do what he did. tucker: clearly he felt that way, had to have known it was going to be an outcry about it. but as someone who s been in and around the justice department for a long time, as he watched director comey s behavior over the last year, did you ever think this is unusual behavior? certainly. i think he didn t have to be inn the justice department. i think people widely perceived some of the directors conduct as unusual at best. jim comey is a good guy, he s a solid american.
somebody who can return the bureau to a more a political stance and really focus on the core law enforcement mission. tucker: so if you were to narrow down to a single incident or criticism, how director comey revealed his lack of fitness for that job, what would it be? what was the thing that turns your view of him? if you remember, july 5th, what he did but is not only did he do the press conference and we disagreed with his decision because he basically showed that hillary had violated the statute that says he s recommending against. that s not his job as the fbi director as it deputy 80 pointed out. his job was to conduct the investigation and to give that investigation to loretta lynch, who is the attorney general. comey did what he did because he recognized loretta lynch had compromised herself by meeting with bill clinton on the airport tarmac, and i get that. but just think of what a gift he did for hillary looking back at that time and people thought
about how he hurt hillary later. had he given it to lynch as you re supposed to which his protocol, lynch definitely would not have prosecuted hillary. we all know that. imagine the outcry, it would ve been tenfold if lynch would have been the one to have done that case. so that fateful decision on july 5th and then colored everything else that happened. i don t think it was necessarily fair to hillary to send that letter ten days before the election but i think he had s already kind of gotten on the record and i do think between not telling congress and telliny congress he kind of had to do it. it all goes back to him putting himself above the attorney general, which is not the proper role of the fbi director. tucker: do you wish more republicans had made that pointt at the time connect not to be f