Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that President Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey was “not terribly well done.”

“You know, I fired a lot of senior people myself and I think the key, when you feel compelled to remove a senior official, is essentially to have all your ducks in a row at the beginning,” he said in an interview for CBS News's "Face the Nation" released Friday.

“It’s always going to be contentious,” Gates added. “[But] it’s to have the rationale, have everybody understand what the rationale was.”

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“But having a single story in line in terms of how it happened and why it happened, that everybody is on the same page, and then what the next steps are I think helps to diminish the blowback they you get.”

Gates, who served under former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaGOP senator blocks Schumer resolution aimed at Biden probe as tensions run high D-Day for Trump: September 29 Obama says making a voting plan is part of 'how to quarantine successfully' MORE, said it is beneficial to have a candidate “who is going to step into the interim immediately.”

“For that to be somebody of impeccable integrity and reputation disarms a lot of the worst criticism that it’s some kind of power play.”

The Trump administration struggled this week to explain the circumstances surrounding Comey's firing.

Trump undercut the official White House account on Thursday when he said he would have fired the FBI chief regardless of a recommendation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein.

Comey’s firing came as the FBI probes Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race, including possible ties between Moscow and Trump’s campaign.