Watergate as President Trump prepares to nominate a new fbi director and meets with the Russian Foreign minister this morning. Our entire team is breaking it down, a special edition of gma starts now. Good morning, america. What a stunning decision from President Trump. Firing fbi director james comey only the second time in American History a president has taken that step. We are covering all the fallout this morning from the white house to the capitol to the fbi. The decision took comey by surprise. He found out from tv on a recruiting trip to los angeles. He thought it was a joke at first. Take a look at his plane landing in d. C. Hours ago after he got the news. We are covering every possible angle of this story. Attorney general Jeff Sessions is expected to soon name an interim fbi director to replace james comey and the president preparing to nominate a permanent replacement. The chair of the Senate Intelligence committee is Campaign Aides if they continue ignoring deadlines to turn over records of meetings with russian officials prior to the election and russias foreign minister is in washington meeting with President Trump and Rex Tillerson to discuss syria and ukraine. Surprising timing. The highest ranking russian official the president has met with. The only event listed on his schedule today but all day long theyll be consumed by the decision to fire james comey. Our chief White House Correspondent jon karl starts us off with all the latest. Good morning, jon. Reporter good morning, george. This firing has stunned washington and it came without any warning whatsoever. Comey first heard the news on tv while he was speaking to fbi agents in los angeles. While comey was in that meeting a letter from the president was hand delivered to fbi headquarters in washington. That letter from the president was read to comey over the phone. You are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately. The president wrote, you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. The president also addressed the fbi investigation into russian meddling in the election. I greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation. The reasons were outlined in a letter from the Deputy Attorney general who wrote that comey grossly mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation saying among other things that this july 2016 press conference exonerating clinton should never have happened. No charges are appropriate in this case. Reporter the Deputy Attorney general says comey was wrong to usurp the attorney generals authority by announcing that there would be no charges and then going on to criticize mrs. Clinton anyway. Its a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do, he wrote. Hours before news of the firing broke, a hint from the White House Press secretary sean spicer. Does the president still have confidence, full confidence in fbi director james comey . I have no reason to believe. I havent asked him so i dont i have not asked the president since the last time we spoke about this. Last time you speak about it you did say he had confidence but cant say that now . In light of what youre telling me i dont want to start speaking on behalf of the president without speaking to him first. Reporter democrats are crying foul. They fired sally yates. They fired Preet Bharara and now director comey, the very man leading the investigation. This does not seem to be a coincidence. Reporter the top democrat in the senate says trumps move could be an attempt to undermine the investigation into russias involvement in the election. This is part of a deeply troubling pattern from the Trump Administration. Reporter senator richard burr, the republican in charge of the Senate Investigation into russias meddling into the election, issued a Statement Last night saying, quote, i am troubled by the timing and termination. His dismissal further confuses an already difficult investigation by the committee. And senator burr is not the only republican expressing concerns this morning. John mccain says he is disappointed by the firing. Senator ben sash issued a statement saying the timing of this firing is very troubling. And senator jeff flake of arizona, republican, said, i spent the last several hours trying to find an acceptable, rationale for the timing of his firing. I just cant do it. We have not heard from Mitch Mcconnell and the democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged all to go en masse to confront him to see what he has to say. Reporter theyll call for a special prosecutor in the case. The president is responding to senator schumer issuing a tweet late last night saying, cryin Chuck Schumer stated recently i do not have confidence in him, james comey, any longer then theswamp. Meantime, that item on the president s schedule, a meeting with the Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Reporter this is something else. You know, its not unusual for the Russian Foreign minister when hes in washington meeting with the secretary of state to also come by for a meeting with the president. Thats happened under many, many president s but, george, it is striking that that is the only thing on President Trumps public schedule, a meeting with the Russian Foreign minister, the only thing on the public schedule. A light public schedule for several days, jon karl, thanks very much. Still so many questions about what happens next for james comey and the fbi. The search on for a new director and Pierre Thomas has the latest from washington. Good morning, pierre. Reporter good morning, robin. Now, i spoke to someone close to comey last night who said the director was caught flatfooted, stunned. No one saw this coming. Comey had only recently talked about serving out the rest of his tenure term which was supposed to end in 2023. T most dominant figures in washington is out. James comey was perhaps the most powerful fbi director since j. Edgar hoover and the most controversial. At the center of a political firestorm since the moment he held that unusual press conference last july to announce that charges would not be brought against then president ial candidate Hillary Clinton in connection with that email scandal. Despite the fact that no charges were filed, comey issued a sharp rebuke. There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive highly classified information. Reporter republicans and then candidate trump cried foul that there were no formal charges. Its so sad that our system is, in fact, rigged. Its totally rigged, okay. Its corrupt, its rigged. Its disgraceful. Reporter then in october this time only 11 days before the election comey dominated the headlines again disclosing that he was reigniting the investigation after new emails tu weiner husband of clinton aide huma abedin. Now trump praising the fbi director and it was democrats who were outraged hearing that comey was injecting himself into the campaign at the last moment only to announce just 48 hours before election day that nothing of consequence had been found. Just last week comey defending his actions in what he described as a gutwrenching decision. Tell me what you would do. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election. Reporter the Justice DepartmentInspector General was already investigating comeys controversial handling of those Clinton Emails when attorney general sessions and the new Deputy Attorney general decided they could not wait for the results of that probe. And concluded that comeys decisions had broken with Department Guidelines and tradition. The acting director of the fbi is now andrew mccabe, until recently comeys top deputy. The white house will now launch a search for a new director who will be hand picked by the president. Comeys firing is not without controversy. Se from any investigations regarding the 2016 election. That includes the russia probe and now Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein, the top prosecutor overseeing the russia case, has fired the fbi director who was leading that probe, robin. Andrew mccabe is now the new acting director. What do we know about him . Reporter mccabe is a veteran agent of roughly 20 Years Experience and worked corruption and terror cases in matters of National Security and been the subject of some controversy himself after it was disclosed his wife received Financial Support from close clinton ally Virginia Governor mcauliffe she ran for office in virginia. His actions involving the email investigation is part of a review too, robin. All right, pierre, thank you. George. We bring in senator tim kaine, Hillary Clintons running mate a member of the Senate Foreign relations and Armed Services committee. Senator kaine, thank you for joining us. You heard the rationale for firing comey. Do you buy it . No, i dont. This is a firin attempt to obstruct the investigation into ties between russia and the Trump Campaign and ill tell you why i strongly believe that, theres a pattern. Deputy attorney general sally yates went to the white house and said general flynn was compromised by and lying about russia and then she was fired. When flynns ties with russia were finally made available to the public, he got fired. Jeff sessions was caught misleading the Senate Judiciary committee about his ties with russia, he had to recuse himself and now the fbi director in the middle of an investigation into the trump ties with russia gets fired in a most unusual manner. There is a pattern here, theres more to come and we need a special prosecutor. Senator kaine, it sounds like you just accused the president of obstructing justice. The president s letter is very telling, george. Because its the president that made this firing decision, not anybody else. And in the letter he says, look, i have to let you go, but he inserts this thi poker player whose patient expression tells you what kind of hand they have. Thank you so much for telling me three times im not the subject of an investigation into russia. That is a tell. That shows that we have a deeply insecure president who understands that the noose is tightening because of this russia investigation and thats why i believe he has let jim comey go. Is he obstructing justice. I think there is an effort to stop this investigation in its tracks, that the president is engaged in along with other members of his team and thats what explains why all these unusual personnel actions are happening. The only thing that unifies them is theyre all about the ties between russia and the trump team. You cited the president s letter. He says he was told on three separate occasions he is not under investigation. To your knowledge has mr. Comey said that to the senate . No, i have no knowledge of that, whether that is in fact true or not, of course, mr. Comey would be the one who could verify that but it was clear in his the senate in the last two weeks that there is an active and Ongoing Investigation into ties between the Trump Campaign, transition and administration with russia and that investigation has been going on since last summer. New york times is reporting that attorney general sessions was charged with coming up with reasons to fire comey. Was it appropriate for him to be involved. It wasnt appropriate. He had to recuse himself from matters with respect to the russia investigation. He was forced to do that again because he was caught misleading the Senate Judiciary committee about his own ties with russia during the campaign. The fact that he ends up being involved in this decision to fire goes against that recusal but, again, lets not, you know, fool ourselves. This was a decision made by the president , others might have been asked to come up with reasons but this wasnt a Jeff Sessions season. It wasnt Rod Rosensteins decision. Senator, the Department Memorandum echoes it. You said comeys decision to reopen the clinton investigation will go down as probably the lowest moment in the history of the fbi. So, is there some justification for removing him . What i said was next to the wiretapping of mlk, that was the lowest moment but i think this was the Second Lowest moment. Look, i have been critical of jim comey but thats why the fbi director gets a tenyear term. I didnt say he should be fired. The tenyear term is to insulate him from making people mad, from political pressure, from congress or from the president so, yeah, ive been critical, but he has a tenyear term so he can do his job free from political interference and the president has interfered as part of a pattern because hes nervous about this russia investigation. Will you and others try to block a replacement for comey until a special prosecutor is named. Well, look, the key thing is as a member of the senate who will be v replacement, i can guarantee you this, anybody nominated to be in this position is going to get the most searching review by the United States senate probably that any nominee has ever gotten and thats appropriate because we want to make sure that this person will follow this investigation wherever it leads. Its premature to talk about how we might handle it. Our goal would not be to block anybody, but to ensure that the fbi director is not going to be afraid of a president whos trying to squash an investigation. Senator kaine, thanks for your time this morning. As we heard from senator kaine, major questions about how james comeys firing will impact the investigation into russian meddling in the u. S. Election. Both republican and democrat lawmakers are now calling for an independent body to investigate. Our chief investigative correspondent brian ross is here with those details. Good morning, brian. Reporter the fbi director was fired just as the fbis Russian Investigation was at a critical juncture and this morning there are growing calls for a special prosecutor to over the investigation that was clearly about to reach into the white house. With the fbis Russian Investigation finally picking up speed after almost a year, senior fbi Officials Say this morning the timing of james comeys firing stinks with democrats calling for a special prosecutor. The inescapable conclusion from the circumstantial evidence is that the president wanted to stop or stifle this investigation. Reporter officials tell abc news that the fbi is increasingly focused on trumps former National Security adviser general mike flynn. His former campaign manager, paul manafort, his former Foreign Policy adviser, carter page, and longtime trump friend, roger stone. All have denied any wrongdoing. But comeys testimony last week was hardly reassuring to the trump camp. Were conducting an investigation to understand whether there was any coordination between the russian efforts and anybody associated with the Trump Campaign. Director at the fbi appointed by President Trump could find subtle ways to undercut or even end the investigation. A new director could come in and ask that an inspection or review of the case be done and that review could cause the case to slow down. It may be closed. Reporter just two days ago the president posted this on twitter. The russia trump collusion story is a total hoax. When will this taxpayerfunded charade end . And last night on fox, white house aide Sara Huckabee sanders said the russia investigation should be shut down. My gosh, tucker, when are they going to let that go . Its been going on for nearly a year. Frankly its kind of getting absurd. Theres nothing there. Reporter there has been some praise for the president s actions. His former Foreign Policy adviser carter page who is one of the targets of the investigation said this morning, he is encouraged that President Trump dismissed comey and hopes that it will investigation into what he calls the false allegations about russia. Robin. Okay, thanks. Lets bring in dan abrams and Cokie Roberts as well and, dan, everybody is trying to wrap their heads around there and heard from carter page there but tim kaine saying flat out this is trying to block the investigation into russia. Now the question is what happens now. And you hear a lot of