A Quote by Rod Rosenstein
Although the president has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly.
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FBI directors serve at the pleasure of the president, but they often have terms that transcend partisan transfers of power at the White House. Firing an FBI director is a major problem from the point of view of a president who is already facing significant questions about investigations already underway.
Presidents are given immense power in the American political system when it comes to personnel. FBI directors are given ten-year terms to insulate them from politics as much as one can, but it's not absolute protection. If a president wants to fire an FBI director, they can do that.
In the case of the FBI, I revealed that William Sessions, the FBI director, had been engaging in abuses of all kinds, and I exposed that. And that led to his dismissal by President Clinton.
This was not a decision made with the Israelis. This was a decision by the president for the American people. And so, it was a decision that we all said Jerusalem should be the capital and the embassy should be there. This decision should not weigh in on the peace process.
The president has a duty and a right to oversee the FBI, and you know, he properly delegate the law enforcement to the FBI and try to insulate it from politics. But that's not to curb the president's authority over the FBI. So if he wants to meet with the FBI and give his opinion or even talk about his hopes, if indeed, he said that, he has every right to do so.
The people have only a very vague direct power. They have the power of voting against the administration, again after its decisions have been taken; but they have no way of getting into the question of policy-making, decision-making, except insofar as the vague forces and pressures of public debate and public opinion have their impact on the President. The President still has to decide. He can't go to the people and ask them to decide for him; he has to make the decision. In that sense he was condemned to be a dictator.
The President of the United States, if you remove his blackness, then just ask the question, is he a good President or is he a bad President for the United States? Just remove the blackness and make that decision.
I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.
Isn't it a little strange the FBI director has a private conversation with the president. Instead of saying to the president, Mr. President, you're new to this job. You're not a legal law enforcement guy. What you're saying is inappropriate to me.
My experience is that the director of the FBI is particularly important to just how aggressive an investigation will be into an issue. And once you remove James Comey, it creates a vacuum at the top. And the fundamental issue will be whether or not there is support at the highest levels within the FBI to continue to conduct that investigation. That's going to be the question mark.
I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director. I was going to stay there and make sure that he couldn't replace me.
It's been clear for some time that FBI Director Comey has lost the confidence of Republicans, Democrats, and broader institutions, and his removal as FBI Director was probably overdue.
To resign from the front bench is not a decision to be taken lightly.
We haven't seen a situation where you have the FBI director talk about an investigation side by side with the attorney general who confirms, yes, I accept the recommendation of the FBI director.
A decision as a backbencher to vote against one's party ought not to be taken lightly.
The most important thing to me is that the president Donald Trump fired the FBI director James Comey all because of the Russia investigation. That first justification given, again, the White House misleading the country about a major action the administration was taking, but the fact that they had a private conversation in which the president, by his own admission, was discussing the future of Director Comey in that job, and the president brings up whether he is under investigation, highly unethical, at a minimum, unethical.
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