James Comey is no longer leading the FBI, but Democrats are still not happy. In fact, they’re throwing out the Nixonian and Watergate comparisons. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is now calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. Yet, let’s also not forget that the Democrats, for the most part, were calling for Mr. Comey’s firing ever since he informed Congress that the FBI would be reviewing more emails 11 days before Election Day. They wanted his head on a pike.
It’s a question that MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson brought up with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), where the senator admitted that a lot of party memebrs wanted Comey out at the FBI.
“So should he be out as head of the FBI, set aside everything else, did you want to see him gone?” asked Jackson.
“It’s absolutely true that Democrats have been very critical of James Comey and many of us did call for his resignation,” replied Murphy.
Over at CNN, Sen. Ed. Markey (D-MA) said this firing could throw the nation into a constitutional crisis, though he couldn’t necessarily detail why that would be the case when pressed by anchor Poppy Harlow.
Markey reiterated the tired and unsubstantiated allegations that Russian intelligence colluded with members of the Trump team to influence the election. State-funded news organizations and social media trolls did try and interfere, but their impact was not pivotal. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg noted fake news stories about Clinton did not sway the election. As for the collusion aspect, zero evidence has been found. None. But how is this a constitutional crisis? John Berman asked Markey directly if he felt President Trump’s actions regarding the dismissal of Mr. Comey violated the Constitution. Markey couldn’t answer; giving a bungled answer about how the Constitution provides an election for president that isn’t influenced by foreign powers, and how he feels that Trump fired Comey for other reasons, specifically over the Bureau’s investigation into the Trump-Russia links. The latter hasn’t been confirmed, and yes—the president can fire the FBI director. Also, it’s not like this will completely stop the investigation into the Russian collusion allegations that have (again) so far yielded zero evidence.