FIRING COMEY WAS A GRAVE ABUSE OF POWER

[DemocratSinceBirth]

On August 7, 1974, a trio of Republican politicians made a sombre journey from Capitol Hill to the White House. Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Representative John Rhodes had dedicated their professional lives to the conservative movement and to the electoral fortunes of the Republican Party. But, on this occasion, they chose to put the interests of their country ahead of the partisan concerns of the G.O.P. They had come to level with Richard Nixon, their fellow-Republican and the President of the United States. The three men told Nixon that the wounds of Watergate had finally cut too deep. His party was abandoning him. It was time for the President to go. He announced his resignation the next day.

The great question in politics today is when, or whether, any Republican will undertake a similar trip to the White House of Donald Trump. Throughout a hundred-plus days, Trump has proved himself temperamentally and intellectually unfit for the Presidency. Following the lamentable campaign of 2016, people surely had modest expectations for the manner in which Trump would conduct himself in office, but his belligerence and his mendacity have been astonishing even by his standards. Still, an undignified Twitter feed, albeit one that originates in the Oval Office, is just a national embarrassment, not a constitutional crisis.


On Tuesday night, when the news of the firing broke, Administration officials announced that the President had acted, at least in part, because Comey, in the course of clearing Hillary Clinton in last year’s e-mail controversy, had made excessively harsh public comments about her. This was patently absurd; Trump had spent the fall quoting and embracing Comey’s criticisms. Later in the week, Trump contradicted his subordinates’ explanation, telling Lester Holt, of NBC, that he had fired Comey because he was “a showboat” and “a grandstander” (coming from Trump, that sounded more like a projection than like a slight) and because Comey’s leadership had left the F.B.I. “in turmoil,” which it is not.


...


The firing of James Comey, the F.B.I. director, on the other hand, represents not only an abuse of language but an abuse of power. In 1976, Congress, recognizing the political sensitivity of the F.B.I. post, set the director’s term at ten years. This act was partly intended to preclude lengthy tenures like J. Edgar Hoover’s forty-seven-year reign, but also to provide the director with a measure of independence from the incumbent Administration. The law did allow the President to remove the director, but the prevailing norm called for this power to be used sparingly. Before Comey, only one director had been fired, in 1993, when President Clinton dismissed William Sessions for ethical lapses—a decision that generated little dissent.


http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/22/firing-comey-was-a-grave-abuse-of-power

[jberryhill]

1. Agreed

The counter-argument that "the president has the power to fire the FBI director" is a misdirection to what "abuse of power" really means.

In order to engage in abuse of power, one has to have the power to abuse in the first place.

It's not "did the president lawfully have this power?" it is "what is the reason it was used?"

The use of a lawful power, for an improper purpose, is an abuse of power.

The fact that the WH has conflicting explanations is a red flashing light that the purpose was improper. Period.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Toobin is a smart guy. I enjoyed his book on SCOTUS.

He also was the youngest prosecutor on Lawrence Walsh's staff when he investigated Iran Contra.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Thinking of an analogy.

The mayor has the right to hire anybody he or she wants as chief of staff. He or she hires the spouse of a person who bought a piece of real estate from him or her at an inflated price.