SARAH Huckabee SANDERS is Principal Deputy Press Secretary
The White House on Wednesday defended President Trump’s decision to fire James Comey, saying the former FBI director threw a “stick of dynamite” into the Department of Justice, and committed “atrocities” in his handling of the Clinton email saga.
“I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails,” Rosenstein wrote in his subsequent letter to Trump, “and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.”
Trump told reporters Wednesday Comey “was not doing a good job.” Some Democrats have expressed concern that the firing is related to the FBI’s investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Huckabee Sanders said Trump had been considering letting Comey go from his role since the election, and that there had been “an erosion of confidence,” but indicated that the final straw for Rosenstein and Trump was Comey’s testimony last week before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. At that hearing, Comey answered wide-ranging questions about his controversial handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server last year.
Huckabee Sanders said Comey’s testimony showed that he had committed “atrocities in circumventing the chain of command” at the Department of Justice and said he had thrown a “stick of dynamite” by going around then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch in calling a press conference in July 2016 to announce his recommendation not to press charges against Clinton. SOURCE: Fox News POLITICS
“I think it’s startling that Democrats aren’t celebrating this since they’ve been calling it for so long,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders