Back in October, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions went on national television to defend FBI Director James Comey's decision to break with protocol and announce, in a press conference, it was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Sessions used the same incident, cited by his deputy attorney general, to fire Comey.

"The Director of the FBI must be someone who follows faithfully the rules and principles of the Department of Justice and who sets the right example for our law enforcement officials and others in the Department," Sessions wrote in a letter to President Trump, recommending Comey be terminated.

Sessions was citing the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed to his position two weeks earlier and on Tuesday criticized Comey in a three-page memo over his handling of the email investigation.

"The Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation," Rosenstein wrote. "The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do."

But on Oct. 30, just days before the presidential election and before he was appointed attorney general, Sessions had a different opinion of Comey's decision.