Chicago Tribune

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President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey in the midst of an FBI investigation of the Trump campaign doesn’t look any better with age.

Trump told Comey on Tuesday he was being dismissed in order to restore trust and confidence in the agency. But since then the opposite is occurring: The president and his underlings are waging a heavy-handed campaign to discredit Comey and diminish the significance of the investigation, with the apparent goal of beating the FBI into submission.

That danger is real. But the FBI’s mission and culture are strong protections against political interference in the agency’s sensitive work. Comey went down fighting to maintain control of the Trump campaign investigation, and the FBI’s new acting director, Andrew McCabe, appears just as determined and independent-minded as Comey. “You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing,” McCabe told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday.

That’s a good sound bite, made more convincing by McCabe’s direct contradictions of the shifting anti-Comey storyline coming out of the White House. McCabe told senators that the investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is “highly significant.” McCabe said he wouldn’t tolerate interference from the White House. He said he wouldn’t allow Comey’s departure to hinder progress of the investigation, nor would he provide the White House with updates. McCabe also contradicted assertions by Trump and other administration officials that Comey needed to be dismissed because he had lost the confidence of rank-and-file agents. “I can tell you that Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day,” McCabe testified.

Where to begin with the White House version of events? On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters the Russia probe is one of “the smallest things” the FBI has “going on their plate.” She used that characterization to justify why Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation, should maintain involvement in choosing Comey’s permanent replacement.

The White House, meanwhile, continues to frantically update its rationale for getting rid of Comey. His dismissal was accompanied by the release of a memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that focused entirely on Comey’s handling of last year’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. That explanation went over like a balloon filled with rocks because it was irrelevant and implausible: Trump had been perfectly happy with that investigation, since it derailed Clinton’s candidacy.

It’s clearer now that the Rosenstein memo was meant to be short-term legal cover. Trump acknowledged Thursday in an interview with Lester Holt of NBC that he had decided to get rid of Comey regardless of Rosenstein’s recommendation. Trump called Comey a “showboat” and was reportedly incensed by Comey’s appearance before Congress last week in which the then-director confessed to being “mildly nauseous” about the idea that his late October decision to reopen the Clinton investigation may have cost her the election.

Trump also told Holt that he’d asked Comey directly if he, Trump, was a target of the investigation. “I said, if it’s possible would you let me know, ‘Am I under investigation?’ He said, ‘You are not under investigation.’” We weren’t privy to that conversation, of course, but the idea that Trump, as Comey’s boss, was asking for specific information about an ongoing investigation would have been a conflict of interest. The answer Trump obviously wanted to hear was “no,” and the answer we would have expected Comey to provide is “I can’t tell you.” After all, targets of an investigation shift over time. McCabe was asked Thursday about the exchange. He didn’t say much, but did tell the committee that it’s not standard practice to inform someone that he or she isn’t a target.

What we are witnessing now is an unseemly scramble by the White House to tamp down a story that isn’t going to go away. Neither will the FBI. The agency has important work to do. It needs the time and space to finish the job.

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