It’s been fun watching Democrats who were calling for Comey’s head just a few days ago suddenly loving the man. Keith Ellison went so far as to call Trump’s firing of Comey a Constitutional crisis:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minneapolis, released the following statement after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey: “We are witnessing a Constitutional crisis unfold before our very eyes. On March 20, FBI Director James Comey confirmed under oath that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign for its involvement with Russian officials to influence our election. Today, President Trump fired him”
But it’s not a Constitutional crisis. Not by a long shot.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is a department of the Executive Branch. As president, Donald Trump is the current head of the Executive Branch. As head of the Executive Branch, Trump has the power to appoint and dismiss heads of departments of the Executive Branch. Dismissing Comey was well within Trump’s constitutionally granted powers.
In the distance I can hear a Democrat whose views on Comey flipped very recently shouting, “But, Chris, Comey was investigating Trump’s ties to Russia! This is obviously a coverup!” To that I will point out that the FBI shouldn’t have been put in charge of that investigation. No department of the Executive Branch should have been for reasons that are probably quite obvious now.
If corruption is suspected in the Executive Branch it falls onto the Legislative and Judicial branches to perform an investigation and take appropriate action. Remember back in civics class when your teacher explained how the three branches of government work as a system of checks and balances? This is what they meant.