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 am not under investigation, i nevertheless concur with the Department Of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. Its not clear what instances the president may be referring to. They have made clear publicly that the fbi is investigating Potential Collusion between President Trumps campaign in the 2016 president ial race and collusion with respective russian operatives. Has trump said reporter this may be a good indication of buy his public schedule has been so light. Were not expected to hear from him this evening. The white house said he will not be coming out, he will not be
making a statement. They said theyre not going to be saying anything else even on paper tonight, anderson. Wasnt Jeff Sessions recusing himself from anything to do with the Russian Investigation . Reporter yes, Jeff Sessions did recuse himself with anything to do with the Russian Investigation, i think thats why the white house is taking pains to point out that it was the Deputy Attorney general who made this recommendation, that comey be fired, then took it to sessions and then they took it to the president. But Jeff Sessions was still involved in the decision to fire the guy who was heading up the investigation . Reporter and i think thats why youre seeing concerns from both republicans and democrats tonight about timing of this and the way its being handled. And comey was at an event in california when he was fired . Reporter this is a very awkward way to be fired because fru trump sent one of his trusted aides over to where trump was
meeting with agents in a field office. And thats apparently how he found out. There were news reports that broke that he was being fired. Its 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, whos investigating his campaign, with a completely
bogus and pretext chural investigation of why he was fired, its of course happened once in american history, and that was october 20, 1973, the saturday night massacre, when Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the special investigator. Youre comparing it to that . Absolutely. And arguably worse, because jim comey is head of the whole fbi, Archibald Cox was only the deputy fbi director. President trump will now be able to install one of his stooges into that job. But from now on, the fbi is going to be directed by someone who answers to donald trump and responds and will supervise the investigation of donald trump. Thats whats going to happen now. Even if theres a Special Prosecutor named, which is now what obviously Many Democrats are calling for, but many On Capitol Hill are saying might be the necessary step in order to have some validity, even if there is a Special Prosecutor, theyre still going to rely on the fbi . Special prosecutors are lawyers, they are prosecutors, theyre not investigators. When i worked on the iran contra investigation, we were independent, but we worked hand in glove with fbi agents. Even though theres a Special Prosecutor, they will rely on fbi agents who will answer to, ultimately a donald trump employee, someone who will be appointed for the specific reason of not investigating donald trump. When you said that the reason that they are giving, youre talking about the acting Attorney Generals explanation, justification that this had a
lot to do with Director Comeys investigation into Hillary Clintons emails. Rod rosensteins memorandum says the reason jim comey was fired is because he was too mean to Hillary Clinton, that he said too many nasty things about her during the campaign. Youll recall, and we have been playing them tonight, that donald trump loved those things, he embraced jim comey all through the fall. And now for those exact reasons, he claims that thats why jim comey has to be fired. Its not believable. It simply couldnt happen. I want to bring in the rest of our panel, Gloria Borger what he said. Is this as strange as jeffry i think it is, i think its bizarre and its an earthquake
and i think that, you know, Ron Rosenstein may well believe everything he wrote in this memo, because a lot of people believe it, that Comey Misbehaved during the clinton investigation of the emails, that He Shouldnt Have had that Press Conference on july 5, that He Shouldnt Have made that announcement on october 28, that set the election upside down. But then i was listening to someone who was giving me the spin from the white house on this, basically saying that this is the Deputy Attorney generals recommendation and the Attorney Generals recommendation and they sent it to the president and by gosh, the president approved it. You have to ask why now . We have joining us on the phone is the democratic congressman adam schiff, the Ranking Member of the house Intelligence Committee, congressman schiff, what do you make of the firing of Director Comey . Well, its incredibly disturbing at any level. First you have it based on a recommendation from an Attorney General who is supposed to have recused himself from an investigation, and of course making the decision that he has his own associates under investigation, and reportedly on the basis that the president applauded during the course of the cam pain. So very hard to understand, races a whole host of very troubling questions, should never have been undertaken and certainly not in the absence of a County Current Appointment of a Special Prosecutor. I dont think anybody can have confidence that the president made this decision on a sound basis, instead, everybodys going to suspect that its in his personal interest to have comey off the case. Do you believe this is an attempt at a coverup . I dont know if i would call it a coverup. But its a brazen interference
with a criminal investigation. After all, the president calls this whole investigation a fake, and here the fbi director, along with all his other flaws and i have criticisms about how he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, for this president to fire him, not at the beginning of his administration when he wanted to make a fresh start, but seemingly Out Of The Blue after comey announced that he was investigating the donald Trump Associates, it just harkens back to some of those most tainted actions by president nixon. Even if a Special Prosecutor is named, they are still going to be relying on the fbi, and it is an fbi that is now directed by somebody whos appointed by donald trump, does that Raise Concerns for you . Its certainly not a perfect
remedy. But i think the American Public would have much more confidence if there was an independent prosecutor to conduct the investigation. They can really have an active hand in the conduct of the investigation. That is really what is called for here. And i would like to see some process by which an independent body helps select that prosecutor. Right now where are all the fbi files, i mean everything thats being investigated, who has control of that now . Well, the agents in the fbi that have been working this that are part of the Counter Intelligence squad, that are focusing on this investigation, they are going to continue doing this work regardless of who the
director is, but someone new who is brought in with the intense of shutting it down, this is a really tainted and bad decision, but it can be followed by an equal lly tainted and even wors decision. Who now has the power to appoint a Special Prosecutor . Well, i think this is something that the Deputy Attorney general can facilitate, can analyze whats the best way to approach the situation, how do we avoid any appearance of impro prity, i would have liked to have seen that letter firing Director Comey, quite an obvious Conflict Of Interest and obviously encourage the Attorney General to butt out of the
situation because he was supposed to have recused himself of the matter. Director comey was expected to speak tonight at a Recruitment Rally in los angeles. Details about how he got his firing, as well as the email that went out to fbi employees. Reporter Jeff Sessions has sent an ermail to fbi employees that the president exercised his Lawful Authority to remove james b. Comey, and director Andrew Mccabe assumed the position of Acting Director of the fbi, as you know Andrew Mccabe is an exceptional Law Enforcement authority. Thank you for your steady fast dedication and commitment during this time of transition. Anderson, the fbi director was traveling in los angeles, he was there for that event that you just mentioned and he was actually speaking to some of those agents in the los angeles field office, its one of the largest offices that the fbi has when this news broke on television, thats how he found out, at about the same time, were told that there was a person who had delivered from the white house the letter from the president telling him that he was gone. So that is how the fbi director found out. He found out from seeing it on television while he was talking to fbi agents . Thats when the news broke about what had happened. The question that we all would ask now is how does he even get home . Under the law, the fbi director is supposed to travel on a special plane that has special Communications Capabilities in order to be able to speak to the president and talk to other top officials. He flew out to los angeles on that plane, does he come back on
that plane . Does he have to fly commercial . We dont know, those are questions that are being asked, what happens now, does he get a chance to clean out his office, his desk . We dont know. We know that Andrew Mccabe is now the director of the fbi and hes going to be running this investigation into trump and russia. And Jeff Sessions, once again, he has recused himself from this Russia Investigation, and again, why was he brought in to oversee or approve the firing of the buy running the fbi . Reporter my guess is what theyre going to say is that this decision to fire james
comey was outside the purview of the Russian Investigation. Thats not way the democratic critics on the hill or even republicans are seeing this, because everything you do with james comey right now affects the investigation, it certainly affects the confidence that people have in this investigation, and its certainly important to what the fbi and what the Justice Department does. Pam, what are you learning . We learned that not long ago, anderson, President Trump met with thenDeputy Director of the fbi andy mccabe, now Acting Director of the fbi, according to the Attorney GeneralJeff Saecessions and we learned that the president didnt know that the Deputy Director would become the Acting Director. Im also told by a person familiar with the situation that
the Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions is reviewing potential candidates to take the place of the director of the fbi. We havent been told any names yet, but that process is under way, because as we know, the firing of james comey has been in the works for a couple of weeks now, ever since Rod Rosenstein was confirmed in the senate. Im told by a person thats familiar, that there were various ways that the white house tried to inform james comey that the president was firing him. Of course there was the hand delivered letter to fbi headquarters, but as we know Director Comey was not there and there was an email sent to him about this decision. Were told that comey didnt find out from this letter, he found out by looking up at the television as he was talking to agents in the fbi field office, talking about his testimony on
capitol hill, they had a lot of questions and he looked up and saw the news on television, and im told he made a joke at the time, made light of it. He was talking to fbi agents in los angeles and he looks up and theres tv screens in the background and he sees that hes fired from television . That is what we are told from sources, myself, that he was there in the fbi field office, that he was talking to fbi agents and he apparently looks up and sees the news on television, and thats the first time he found out that he was fired from the fbi by President Trump. And shortly after that, and at
that time, people familiar with the situation said that he made light of the situation. Everyone in that room was so shocked, and there was just silence when they realized what was going on. Then the then fired fbi director james comey just tried to lighten the mood because there was such shock in the room, anderson. Wow, i mean, how do you finish that speech . Dana bash, On Capitol Hill, i understand that President Trump made a few calls to several folks On Capitol Hill before the news broke, unlike to the director himself . Exactly, he called just for example the chairman of the subcommittee in charge of the fbi, that is is senator lindsey graham, on the democratic side, we know he talked to dianne feinste
feinstein, whos 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, thats 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. Its 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 youre talking about the letter the letter from Rod Rosenstein, detailing why they thought james comey did a bad j